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Orations 
Addresses  and  Speeches 


OF 


CHAUNCEY  M.  DEPEW 


EDITED  BY 

JOHN  DENISON  CHAMPLIN 


VOLUME  I 
ORATIONS  AND  MEMORIAL   ADDRESSES 


NEW  YORK 

PRIVATELY  PRINTED 

1910 


M 


Copyright,  1910, 
By  Chauncey  M.  Depew 


GENERAL  INTRODUCTION 

BY  HONORABLE  HENRY  CABOT  LODGE 
United  States  Senator  from  Massachusetts 


4- 


X^ 


ISTINGUISHED  alike  at  the  Bar  and  in  business, 
as  the  President  of  a  great  railroad  system  and  as  a 
Senator  of  the  United  States,  Mr.  Depew  has  had 
a  career  of  incessant  activity  and  has  been,  far 
more  than  is  given  to  most  men,  in  touch  with  life 
and  the  movements  of  his  time.  In  addition  to  this 
he  has  spoken  in  public  on  a  greater  variety  of  subjects  probably 
than  any  other  man  of  our  day  during  the  past  half  century.  It 
is  in  that  way  perhaps  that  he  is  better  known  than  in  any  other. 
To  thousands  of  people  who  could  tell  little  perhaps  of  his  ardu- 
ous work  as  lawyer  and  as  business  man  his  name  and  his  utter- 
ances are  as  familiar  as  household  words.  These  thousands  who 
have  listened  to  him  have  been  charmed  and  moved  by  his  elo- 
quence, influenced  by  his  arguments,  and  delighted  by  his  unfailing 
wit  and  overflowing  humor.  In  these  volumes  are  gathered  and 
preserved  his  speeches,  and  a  mere  glance  at  the  contents  shows 
the  really  astonishing  variety  of  the  occasions  upon  which  Mr. 
Depew  has  spoken  and  of  the  subjects  with  which  he  has  dealt. 
Not  only  does  he  range  from  grave  to  gay,  from  lively  to  severe, 
but  history  and  politics,  biography  and  literature  all  find  a  place. 
Yet  is  there  something  far  more  important  in  these  volumes  than 
the  record  of  the  speaker's  opinions  and  arguments  which  people 
are  generally  prone  to  think  is  all  that  is  to  be  found  in  speeches. 
Writers  of  history  look  to  the  speeches  of  the  period  which  they 
seek  to  describe  for  their  best  authorities,  not  only  as  to  the  facts 
and  conditions  of  the  time  but  for  the  feeling  of  the  moment  with 
which  the  spoken  word  and  no  other  is  charged.  The  historians 
of  Greece  and  Rome  felt  this  so  strongly  that  they  not  only  wrote 
speeches  for  their  heroes  but  used  the  historical  present  because 
that  tense  seemed  to  make  the  past  live  again  more  vividly.  Here 
in  these  volumes  we  have  not  only  the  political  and  parliamentary 


305679 


iv  GENERAL    INTRODUCTION 

speeches  to  which  historians  turn  but  speeches  which  touch  almost 
every  phase  of  life,  which  help  to  make  the  past  live  again,  not 
merely  as  it  was  in  the  Senate  or  on  the  hustings  but  as  it  existed 
at  the  college  commencement,  the  celebration  of  historic  events, 
at  the  dinner  table,  and  at  the  gathering  to  commemorate  the  great 
men  of  the  past.  Here  in  these  volumes,  set  forth  with  humor 
and  wit,  with  eloquence  and  feeling,  we  can  find  unrolled  a  pano- 
rama of  our  American  life  during  the  last  fifty  years.  From  them 
we  can  learn  that  best  of  all  historical  lessons  which  Browning 
summed  up  in  the  title  of  his  famous  poem:  "How  it  Strikes  a 
Contemporary." 

Washington,  May  18,  1910. 


A^y  C«^*4r*fr~ 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 

General  Introduction,  by  the   Honorable  Henry  Cabot  Lodge, 

United  States  Senator  from  Massachusetts  -  iii 

List  of  Illustrations      ---------         vii 

Chauncey    M.    Depew,   biographical    sketch,    by   John    Denison 

Champlin        ----------  ix 

Oration  on  the  One  Hundredth  Anniversary  of  the  Inauguration 
of  President  Washington,  on  the  site  of  Federal  Hall,  New 
York,  April  30,   1889    --------  1 

Oration  on  the  Political  Mission  of  the  United  States,  at  the 
Celebration  of  the  Birthday  of  Washington,  by  the  Union 
League  Club  of  Chicago,  February  22,  1888  -        -        -        -  25 

Address  at  the  Unveiling  of  the  Statue  of  Alexander  Hamilton 

in  Central  Park,  New  York,  November  22,  1880  -        -        -  43 

Oration  at  the  Centennial  Celebration  of  the  Capture  of  Major 

Andre,  at  Tarrytown,  New  York,  September  23,  1880        -  50 

The  Columbian  Oration,  Delivered  at  the  Dedicatory  Ceremonies 

of  the  World's  Fair,  Chicago,  October  21,  1892    -        -        -  68 

Address  at  the  Celebration  of  the  Birthday  of  Abraham  Lincoln, 

at  Burlington,  Vermont,  February  12,   1895        -  82 

"  Oration  at  the  Unveiling  of  the  Statue  of  Liberty  Enlightening 

the  World,  New  York  Harbor,  October  28,  1886  96 

*  Address  at  the  Laying  of  the  Corner-stone  of  the  Grant  Mau- 
soleum, at  Riverside  Park,  New  York,  April  27,  1892  -        -        109 

Address  at  the  Unveiling  of  the  Statue  of  General  Grant,  at 

Galena,  Illinois,  June  3,  1891        -        -        -        -        -        -        119 

Address  before  the  Legislature  of  the  State  of  New  York,  at  the 
Services  in  Memory  of  General  William  Tecumseh  Sherman, 
March  29,   1892    ---------         129 

Oration  at  the  Reunion  of  the  Army  of  the  Potomac,  at  Saratoga, 

New  York,  June  22,  1887    -------         143 

Oration  at  the  Unveiling  of  the  Statue  of  Horace  Greeley,  New 

York,  September  20,  1890    -        -        -        -        -        -        -         156 

Address  at  the  Unveiling  of  the  Monument  Presented  to  the  State 
of  New  York  by  the  Society  of  Colonial  Wars,  at  Lake 
George,  September  8,  1903  -------         166 

Address  at  the  Centennial  Celebration  of  the  Formation  of  the 
Government  of  the  State,  at  Kingston,  New  York,  July  30, 

1877 175 

v 


vi  CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Address  at  the  Celebration  of  the  Centennial  of  the  Establishment 

of  the  State  Capitol,  at  Albany,  January  6,  1897  -  190 

Address  at  the  Memorial  Service  in  Honor  of  President  Garfield 
by  the  Grand  Army  of  the  Republic,  at  dickering  Hall,  New- 
York,  September  26,  1881     -------        210 

Address  at  the  Memorial  Service  in  Honor  of  President  Arthur, 
by  the  Legislature  of  the  State  of  New  York,  in  the  Assem- 
bly Chamber  at  Albany,  April  20,  1887        -        -        -        -        216 

Address  at  the  Memorial  Service  on  the  Centenary  of  the  Death 
of  Washington,  by  the  Great  Council  of  the  United  States, 
Improved  Order  of  Red  Men,  at  Washington,  December 
14,    1899        ----------        226 

Address  at  the  Unveiling  of  the  Statue  of  Columbus,  in  Central 

Park,  New  York,  May  12,  1894     ------        238 

Address  at  the  Memorial  Day  Services  of  the  Grand  Army  of  the 

Republic,  at  Carnegie  Hall,  New  York,  May  30,  1905     -        -        245 

Address  at  the  Hall  of  Fame,  New  York  University,  University 

Heights,  May  30,   1901  -------        252 

Address  at  the  Memorial  Service  in  Honor  of  Governor  Reuben 
E.  Fenton,  by  the  Legislature  of  the  State  of  New  York,  in 
the  Capitol  at  Albany,  April  27,  1887     -----        259 

Address   at   the   Unveiling  of  the   Statue   of   General   John   A. 

Logan,  at  Washington,  April  9,  1901  -----        274 

Address  at  the  Memorial  Services  in  Honor  of  John  Jay,  Novem- 
ber 20,    1894  _------__        282 

Address  at  the  Services  in  Memory  of  Charles  Stewart  Parnell, 

at  the  Academy  of  Music,  New  York,  November  15,  1891     -        287 

Address  at  the  Memorial  Services  in  Honor  of  Louis  Kossuth,  at 

Cooper  Institute,  New  York,  April  4,  1894  -  299 

Address  at  the  Memorial  Services  in  Honor  of  General  James 
W.  Husted,  by  the  Legislature  of  the  State  of  New  York,  in 
the  Assembly  Chamber  at  Albany,  March  28,  1893        -        -        303 

Address  on  Resolutions  in  Memory  of  Representative  Amos  J. 
Cummings,  of  New  York,  in  the  United  States  Senate, 
February   14,   1903         --------        317 

Address  on  Resolutions  in  Memory  of  Representative  John  H. 
Ketcham,  of  New  York,  in  the  United  States  Senate,  March 
2,  1907  -----------323 

Address  on  Resolutions  in  Memory  of  Representative  William  H. 
Flack,  of  New  York,  in  the  United  States  Senate,  March 
2,   I9°7 33° 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


Chauncey   Mitchell   Depew       -----        Frontispiece 
From  photograph  by  G.  V.  Buck,  Washington,  D.C. 


PAGE 


George  Washington  ---------       IOO 

Alexander  Hamilton         --------       200 

Thomas  Jefferson     ---------       300 


OF   THc 

OF 


CHAUNCEY  MITCHELL  DEPEW 


HAUNCEY  MITCHELL  DEPEW,  statesman, 
counsellor,  orator,  and  man  of  the  world,  whose 
name  is  known  everywhere,  was  born  in  Peekskill, 
Westchester  County,  New  York,  April  23,  1834, 
of  Huguenot  and  New  England  parentage.  His 
father,  Isaac  Depew,  a  prominent  citizen  and  mer- 
chant, was  a  lineal  descendant  of  Frangois  Du  Puy,  a  Huguenot, 
who  fled  from  France  during  the  religious  persecutions  of  the 
seventeenth  century. 

The  name  Du  Puy  or  De  Puy  is  an  ancient  one,  having  been 
prominent  as  early  as  the  eleventh  century.  Raphael  Du  Puy 
was  an  officer  of  rank  in  1030  under  Conrad  II,  of  the  Holy 
Roman  Empire,  and  Hugues  Du  Puy,  his  son,  distinguished  him- 
self in  the  Crusades.  The  family  was  early  in  France,  and  its 
history  is  marked  down  the  centuries  by  many  noted  names  and 
titles  both  in  Church  and  State.  In  the  religious  upheaval  that 
culminated  in  the  Massacre  of  St.  Bartholomew  part  of  the  fam- 
ily became  identified  with  the  Genevan  or  Calvinistic  party,  which, 
under  the  name  of  Huguenots,  became  so  powerful  under  Henry 
IV  that  it  was  granted  freedom  of  worship  in  1598  by  the  Edict 
of  Nantes.  After  the  capture  of  La  Rochelle,  the  Huguenot 
headquarters,  by  Richelieu  in  1628,  many  of  the  faith,  despairing 
of  attaining  religious  peace  at  home,  migrated  to  England  and 
the  Low  Countries,  and  some  of  them  eventually  to  the  New 
World. 

Among  those  who  thus  left  the  land  of  their  fathers  were 
two  brothers,  Nicolas  and  Frangois  Du  Puy,  who  escaped  from 
Paris,  tradition  says,  in  1651,  on  hearing  of  their  threatened 
arrest,  and  went  into  the  Netherlands.  Some  ten  years  later 
Frangois,  the  younger,  sailed  for  New  Amsterdam  in  the  New 
World,  where  he  arrived  three  or  four  years  before  its  occupation 
by  the  English.  Frangois,  who  was  followed  by  his  brother 
Nicolas  a  year  later,  appears  first  in  Breuckelen  (Brooklyn), 
where  he  was  married,  September  26,  1661,  to  Geertje  Willems, 
daughter  of  Willem  Jacobs  Van  Boerum.     He  was  living  at  this 

ix 


\ 


x  ORATIONS  AND  MEMORIAL  ADDRESSES 

time  in  Bushwick,  east  of  Brooklyn,  but  in  1677  is  recorded  a 
member  of  the  Dutch  Church  at  Flatbush.  In  1687  he  is  at 
Haverstraw,  now  in  Rockland  County,  on  the  west  bank  of  the 
Hudson,  whence  he  crossed  the  river  in  1702  into  Westchester 
County,  and  settled  on  a  tract  originally  purchased  from  the 
Indians  in  1685,  under  a  license  from  Governor  Dongan.  Though 
this  tract  fell  eventually  within  the  political  limits  of  the  Manor 
of  Cortlandt,  erected  in  1697,  its  so^  was  ne^  in  fee  by  its  pro- 
prietors, from  one  of  whom  it  was  named  Ryke's  Patent,  Ryke 
being  the  Dutch  abbreviation  of  Richard.  Part  of  this  Patent, 
on  which  the  village  of  Peekskill  was  founded  in  1764,  belonged 
to  Frangois  Depew,  and  the  last  of  his  share  was  given 
in  1896  by  Chauncey  M.  Depew  to  the  city  of  Peekskill  for  a 
public  park. 

The  surname  Du  Puy  has  masqueraded  in  many  forms  in  its 
passage  through  Dutch  into  English,  and  we  find  it  recorded  as 
Dupuis,  Dupui,  Dupuy,  Depee,  Depuy,  De  Pue,  Depu,  Depew,  etc. 
Frangois,  grandson  of  the  original  Francois,  who  was  baptized 
August  20,  1700,  in  the  old  Dutch  Church  of  Sleepy  Hollow  at 
Tarrytown,  is  generally  recorded  "Frans  De  Pew,"  and  later  the 
surname  takes  its  present  form,  Depew.  Abraham  Depew, 
grandson  of  this  Frans,  who  was  baptized  at  Tarrytown,  April 
5,  1752,  married  Catherine,  daughter  of  Capt.  James  Cronkite, 
and  became  the  great  grandfather  of  Chauncey  Mitchell  Depew. 
He  enlisted  in  1777  in  the  Third  Regiment  of  the  Manor  of 
Cortlandt,  commanded  by  Col.  Pierre  Van  Cortlandt  and  subse- 
quently, on  the  election  of  Col.  Van  Cortlandt  as  Lieutenant-gov- 
ernor, by  Col.  Drake,  and  served  until  his  discharge  as  a  corporal 
in  1780,  at  the  close  of  the  war.  From  him  and  from  Captain 
Cronkite  Mr.  Depew  derives  his  right  as  a  Son  of  the  American 
Revolution. 

Mr.  Depew's  New  England  affiliations  are  derived  from  his 
mother,  who  was  born  Martha  Mitchell,  daughter  of  Chauncey 
Root  and  Ann  (Johnstone)  Mitchell.  Chauncey  Root  Mitchell, 
a  distinguished  lawyer  of  Westchester  County  and  afterwards  of 
Delaware  County,  where  he  was  until  his  death  the  partner  of  the 
famous  lawyer  and  statesman,  General  Erastus  Root,  was  noted 
for  ability  as  an  advocate  and  orator.  Ann  Johnstone  was  the 
daughter  of  Judge  Robert  Johnstone  of  Putnam  County,  for 
many  years  State  Senator  and  Judge.     He  was  a  large  landed 


CHAUNCEY  MITCHELL  DEPEW  xi 

proprietor,  owning  Lake  Mahopac  and  much  of  the  country 
around  it.  Mrs.  Depew's  grandfather  was  the  Rev.  Justus 
Mitchell,  a  lineal  descendant  of  Major  Matthew  Mitchell,  who 
came  to  New  England  in  1633  from  Halifax,  Yorkshire.  Rev. 
Justus  Mitchell  married  Martha  Sherman,  daughter  of  Rev. 
Josiah  and  Martha  (Minott)  Sherman,  and  niece  of  Hon.  Roger 
Sherman,  signer  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence.  Martha 
Sherman  was  fifth  in  descent  f rpm  Captain  John  Sherman,  who 
was  born  at  Dedham,  County  Essex,  England,  in  161 5,  and  who 
married  Martha,  daughter  of  William  and  Grace  Palmer. 

Mr.  Depew's  New  England  ancestry  thus  includes,  besides  the 
Mitchells  and  the  Shermans,  the  blood  of  the  Palmers,  Winships, 
Wellingtons,  Minotts,  and  Johnstones,  all  notable  families  in  the 
New  World.  His  mother,  from  whom  were  derived  many  of 
the  characteristics  that  have  conduced  to  his  success,  was  of 
marked  personal  beauty,  varied  accomplishments,  and  social 
prominence.     She  died  in  1885. 

Peekskill,  Mr.  Depew's  natal  place,  named  after  Jan  Peek,  an 
early  Dutch  navigator,  has  now  a  population  of  more  than  fifteen 
thousand.  The  Depew  homestead,  a  picturesque  building  with 
a  portico  supported  by  Ionic  columns,  shown  in  the  vignette  on 
the  first  title  page,  is  still  in  possession  of  the  family,  and  Mr. 
Depew,  although  his  residence  is  in  New  York  City,  delights  to 
call  this  house  and  Peekskill  his  home.  The  country  around  it 
is  replete  with  historic  and  patriotic  associations,  especially  those 
connected  with  the  Arnold  and  Andre  episode,  treated  so  master- 
fully in  one  of  his  orations,  and  doubtless  had  its  influence  in 
forming  his  character  in  youth. 

The  favorable  situation  of  Peekskill  on  the  east  bank  of  the 
Hudson  made  it  the  market  for  the  country  back  of  it  as  far  as 
the  Connecticut  State  line,  and  the  shipping-point  of  its  produce 
to  New  York,  from  which  it  is  distant  about  forty  miles.  The 
transportation  of  freight,  wholly  by  the  river,  was  controlled 
almost  entirely  by  Isaac  Depew  and  his  brother,  both  energetic 
farmers  and  merchants.  There  were  no  railroads  in  those  days, 
but  the  New  York  and  Albany  steamboats,  of  rival  lines,  were 
always  a  subject  of  interest,  attracting  crowds  to  the  bank  as  they 
passed  up  or  down  the  river,  often  racing.  Each  boat  had  its 
partisans,  and  Vanderbilt  and  Drew,  the  principal  owners,  were 
popular  heroes  with  the  youth  of  the  village,  among  whom  young 


xii  ORATIONS  AND  MEMORIAL  ADDRESSES 

Depew  was  by  no  means  backward.  These  boats  and  his  father's 
business  led  him  early  to  take  interest  in  the  transportation  prob- 
lem, to  which  in  later  years  he  devoted  so  much  time  and  success- 
ful study. 

The  boy's  first  instruction  was  received  from  his  mother,  a 
lady  of  rare  education  and  culture.  He  was  next  put  in  charge 
of  Mrs.  Westbrook,  the  wife  of  an  able  and  well-informed  clergy- 
man, who  had  a  small  school  for  children  under  ten.  Dr. 
Westbrook,  a  man  of  extensive  reading  and  encyclopaedic  infor- 
mation, took  an  interest  in  the  youth,  walked  and  talked  often  with 
him  as  if  his  equal  and,  while  instructing  him  in  the  history  and 
politics  of  the  past,  imbued  him  with  ideas  in  relation  to  the 
present  which  developed  in  time  into  the  faith  characteristic  of 
his  later  years.  Through  the  training  thus  received  the  apt  pupil, 
who  was  also  an  omnivorous  reader,  became  informed  beyond 
his  years  on  the  events  and  political  issues  of  the  past  and  the 
present,  and  was  often  able  to  confound  the  village  oracles  who 
expounded  their  views  at  the  postofiice,  bank,  or  drug  store.  Re- 
garded as  a  prodigy,  he  became  a  leader  among  his  fellows,  who 
looked  up  to  him  as  one  who  gave  unmistakable  promise  of  future 
brilliancy  and  usefulness. 

The  period  between  his  tenth  and  eighteenth  years  was  passed 
at  the  Peekskill  Academy,  an  old-fashioned  institution  designed 
primarily  to  prepare  boys  for  a  business  career,  and  its  students 
were  expected  to  go  out  early  into  the  world  of  work.  Isaac 
Depew  had  placed  his  son  there  in  the  hope  that  he  would  join  him 
in  his  business,  but  the  youth,  influenced  probably  by  his  mother 
and  the  instructions  of  Dr.  Westbrook,  had  visions  of  a  more 
ambitious  career.  Fortunately  these  visions  were  aided  by  the 
advice  of  Judge  Nelson,  son  of  the  Hon.  William  Nelson,  who 
remarked  to  the  elder  Depew  one  evening:  "You  ought  to  send 
Chauncey  to  college."  This  was  the  entering  wedge,  and  the 
father,  after  a  season  of  deliberation,  concluded  to  take  the 
Judge's  advice,  though  when  Yale  college  was  suggested,  he  inter- 
posed objections.  An  old-fashioned  business  man  and  a  Jackson 
Democrat,  he  had  the  distrust  of  Yankees  characteristic  of  a 
"Hudson  River  Dutchman"  and  a  reader  of  Irving  and  Cooper. 
But  the  wishes  of  his  wife,  whose  descent  from  New  England 
progenitors  naturally  turned  her  preferences  in  that  direction, 
finally  prevailed,  and  Chauncey  was  sent  to  Yale. 


CHAUNCEY  MITCHELL  DEPEW  xiii 

My  first  acquaintance  with  Chauncey  Depew  began  in  1852 
when  he  arrived  in  New  Haven  to  enter  the  class  that  was  to 
graduate  in  1856,  which  in  after  years  won  the  title  of  the 
"Famous  Class  of  '56,"  partly  on  account  of  the  general  good 
standing  of  its  members  in  the  various  professions  and  especially 
because  it  had  two  representatives  on  the  Bench  of  the  Supreme 
Court  at  Washington,  Henry  Billings  Brown  and  David  Josiah 
Brewer.  In  this  class,  consisting  of  some  one  hundred  and 
twenty-five  men,  Depew  soon  made  his  mark,  winning  his  way 
to  the  front  largely  through  personal  attractions,  but  particu- 
larly by  his  gift  as  a  speaker  which  made  him  the  orator  of  the 
class.  He  seldom  lost  an  opportunity  to  enter  into  a  debate  and 
always  acquitted  himself  creditably.  His  classmates  still  re- 
member with  pride  his  effort  in  the  debate  between  the  two  so- 
cieties, Linonia  and  Brothers  in  Unity,  in  which  he  appeared  as 
the  champion  of  the  former  with  Wayne  MacVeagh  of  the  Class 
of  1853. 

Depew's  personal  appearance  at  this  period  was  striking.  He 
was  taller  than  many  of  his  classmates  and  had  sharp  well  chis- 
elled features  marked  by  the  prominent  aquiline  nose  still  char- 
acteristic of  him.  His  abundant  yellow  hair  was  worn  long,  in  the 
fashion  of  the  time,  nearly  reaching  his  shoulders.  He  always 
dressed  well,  exhibiting  a  penchant  for  elaborately  tied  cravats 
decorated  with  the  pin  of  his  secret  society.  His  roommate  and 
most  intimate  friend  was  George  Chester  Robinson,  afterwards 
prominent  in  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  who,  of  about  the 
same  height  and  alike  noted  for  fashionable  costume,  was  often 
seen  with  him  on  Chapel  Street,  especially  on  pleasant  afternoons 
when  ladies  were  out. 

Depew  came  to  College  a  Democrat.  Like  his  father  and 
other  members  of  the  family,  he  belonged  to  the  conservative 
wing  of  the  party  willing  to  leave  the  slavery  question  in  abey- 
ance, nicknamed  in  New  York  State  "Old  Hunkers"  to  distin- 
guish them  from  the  "Barnburners,"  or  Free  Soil  Democrats,  who 
were  opposed  to  any  further  extension  of  slavery  into  the  Terri- 
tories. There  were  three  Presidential  candidates  in  the  field  in 
1852,  when  our  class  first  met  under  the  elms  of  Yale,  Franklin 
Pierce,  the  nominee  of  the  National  Democratic  Party,  Winfield 
Scott  of  the  Whig  Party,  and  John  P.  Hale  of  the  Free  Soil 
Democrats,     In  the  frequent  debates  on  the  campus,  in  which  the 


xiv  ORATIONS  AND  MEMORIAL  ADDRESSES 

old  topics  of  Tariff,  Internal  Improvements,  and  National  Bank 
had  given  place  to  the  more  burning  questions  of  the  day,  the 
Fugitive  Slave  Law,  Personal  Liberty  Bills,  and  the  extension 
of  slavery,  Depew  at  first  upheld  the  traditional  politics  of  his 
family,  but  with  the  trend  of  events  his  principles  gradually  un- 
derwent a  change.  In  1853  the  famous  Kansas-Nebraska  Bill 
caused  the  disintegration  of  the  old  parties  and  a  formation  on 
new  lines  in  relation  to  the  slavery  question.  The  eloquent  dis- 
cussions of  the  many  phases  of  these  questions  by  the  Rev.  Dr. 
Bacon  from  the  pulpit  of  the  Centre  Church,  and  of  Wendell 
Phillips,  George  William  Curtis,  William  Lloyd  Garrison,  and 
other  famous  anti-slavery  orators  from  public  platforms  in  New 
Haven,  aroused  in  Depew  a  consciousness  that  he  was  on  the 
wrong  side  of  the  great  questions  of  the  day  and  finally  caused 
him  to  repudiate  the  principles  in  which  he  had  been  educated 
and  to  cast  his  lot  with  the  Anti-Nebraska  Men.  When  early  in 
1856  the  Anti-Nebraska  Men  adopted  the  name  Republican 
Party,  later  characterized  by  Democrats  with  a  contemptuous  ad- 
dition as  "Black  Republican,"  Depew  transferred  his  allegiance 
to  the  new  party ;  and  when,  in  June,  John  Charles  Fremont,  of 
California,  whose  explorations  in  the  West  had  won  him  the 
title  of  the  "Pathfinder,"  was  made  the  Republican  standard 
bearer,  our  classmate  enlisted  under  his  banner  with  an  enthusi- 
asm that  knew  no  bounds. 

I  shall  never  forget  Depew's  public  announcement  of  his 
change  of  principles.  In  company  with  John  Mason  Brown,  of 
Kentucky,  afterward  prominent  at  the  Bar  and  in  the  politics  of 
his  State,  and  who,  but  for  his  early  death,  would  probably  have 
been  the  third  member  of  our  Class  to  sit  on  the  Supreme  Court 
Bench,  I  was  walking  up  Chapel  Street  on  the  side  of  the  Green 
when  our  attention  was  attracted  by  a  voice  from  across  the 
street : 

"Boys,  I'm  going  to  do  it." 

"Do  what?"  we  both  asked,  as  we  recognized  "Chat"  Depew, 
as  he  was  familiarly  known  to  his  classmates. 

"Vote  for  Fremont." 
Though  Depew's  change  of  principles  was  no  secret  to  those 
who  had  often  heard  him  discourse  when  seated  under  the  elms, 
or  on  the  historic  fence  in  front  of  the  old  brick  row,  the  an- 


CHAUNCEY  MITCHELL  DEPEW  xv 

nouncement  came  somewhat  in  the  nature  of  a  surprise  to  both 
of  us. 

Depew  had  scarcely  received  his  degree  when  he  threw  him- 
self heart  and  soul  into  the  canvass  in  support  of  Fremont  and 
Dayton,  making  speeches  in  their  behalf  and  beginning  the  polit- 
ical career  which  made  him  so  prominent  a  figure  in  every  suc- 
ceeding presidential  campaign.  As  he  has  himself  recorded,  his 
defection  from  parental  principles  nearly  broke  his  father's 
heart  and  caused  him  to  shed  tears  of  mortification  when  his  son 
first  appeared  on  a  Republican  platform  in  his  native  village. 
But  the  son  had  thoroughly  weighed  the  situation  and  though 
doomed  to  disappointment  in  the  defeat  of  Fremont  and  the 
election  of  Buchanan  and  Breckenridge,  he  saw  no  reason  to 
recede  from  the  advanced  position  he  had  assumed.  The  new 
party,  with  its  hopeful  and  brilliant  radicalism  and  its  avowed 
declaration  that  it  was  "the  right  and  the  duty  of  Congress  to 
prohibit  Slavery  and  Polygamy  in  the  Territories,,,  appealed 
strongly  to  his  sense  of  justice  and  humanity,  and  led  him  to 
even  greater  effort  in  favor  of  its  principles. 

After  leaving  Yale  Depew  entered  the  law  office  of  the  Hon. 
William  Nelson  as  a  student,  in  1858  was  admitted  to  the  Bar,  and 
in  the  following  year  began  in  Peekskill  the  practice  of  his  pro- 
fession in  which  he  soon  demonstrated  his  ability.  But  his  early 
interest  in  politics  did  not  desert  him  and  seemed  for  a  time  des- 
tined to  interfere  seriously  with  his  business.  In  1858  he  was 
elected  a  delegate  to  the  Republican  State  Convention,  and  to 
every  State  Convention  but  two  up  to  and  including  1908;  and 
he  was  one  of  the  four  Delegates  at  Large  from  New  York  to 
the  Republican  National  Conventions  of  1888,  1892,  1896,  1900, 
1904,  and  a  delegate  in  1908. 

In  i860  he  took  the  stump  for  Lincoln  and  Hamlin,  making 
many  speeches  and  meeting  with  an  enthusiastic  reception  where- 
ever  he  went.  He  was  then  only  twenty-six  years  old,  but  his 
skill  as  an  orator  and  his  careful  analysis  of  the  great  questions 
at  issue  showed  that  his  ability  and  judgment  were  in  advance 
of  his  years.  In  1861  he  was  elected  a  Member  of  the  New  York 
Assembly  from  the  Third  Westchester  District,  in  which  the 
Democrats  had  usually  had  a  good  working  majority,  a  high 
compliment  to  his  personal  popularity.  In  this  position  he  ex- 
hibited such  intelligence,    industry,   and  tact,   and  watched   so 


xvi  ORATIONS  AND  MEMORIAL  ADDRESSES 

carefully  over  the  interests  of  his  constituents  that  he  was  re- 
elected in  1862,  and  his  name  was  prominently  mentioned  in 
connection  with  the  speakership.  He  acted  as  Speaker  pro  tern. 
during  part  of  the  session,  was  Chairman  of  the  Committee  on 
Ways  and  Means,  and  received  other  honors  unusual  for  one  so 
young  in  years  and  experience. 

In  1863  Mr.  Depew  was  put  on  the  State  ticket  as  the  candi- 
date of  the  Republican  Party  for  Secretary  of  State.  In  the 
previous  election  the  Democrats  had  won  a  signal  victory  under 
their  standard  bearer,  Horatio  Seymour,  one  of  the  purest  and 
ablest  statesmen  New  York  has  produced,  and  in  order  to  insure 
success  the  Republicans  were  obliged  not  only  to  exercise  care  in 
the  selection  of  candidates  but  also  to  put  forth  their  most  earn- 
est efforts  to  overcome  the  prestige  of  Governor  Seymour's  popu- 
larity. But  Mr.  Depew  was  equal  to  the  occasion.  He  entered 
with  enthusiasm  into  the  contest,  leading  his  forces  with  a  skill 
and  energy  that  overcame  all  obstacles,  speaking  twice  a  day  for 
six  consecutive  weeks  with  a  vigor  and  commanding  eloquence 
that  entranced  his  listeners,  and  winning  a  notable  victory  with 
a  majority  of  thirty  thousand.  He  discharged  the  duties  of  the 
office  with  so  much  ability  that  he  was  offered  a  renomination, 
but,  though  flattered  by  the  confidence  of  his  party,  was  obliged 
by  business  interests  to  decline. 

When  Andrew  Johnson  succeeded  to  the  Presidency  on  the 
death  of  Lincoln,  one  of  his  earliest  acts  was  to  reward  Mr. 
Depew  for  his  services  to  the  party.  He  made  out  his  commis- 
sion as  Collector  of  the  Port  of  New  York,  then  one  of  the 
most  lucrative  gifts  within  the  President's  bestowal;  but  before 
he  had  sent  it  to  the  Senate  for  confirmation  he  became  incensed 
against  Edwin  D.  Morgan,  then  United  States  Senator  from  New 
York,  because  he  refused  to  sustain  his  veto  of  the  Civil  Rights 
Bill,  and  angrily  tore  up  the  document.  Later  in  President 
Johnson's  administration,  William  H.  Seward,  then  Secretary  of 
State,  secured  the  appointment  of  Mr.  Depew  as  United  States 
Minister  to  Japan,  and  it  was  confirmed  by  the  Senate,  but  after 
holding  the  matter  under  advisement  for  a  month,  the  position 
was  declined  for  family  reasons. 

While  thus  apparently  turning  his  back  on  a  career  that  of- 
fered the  most  flattering  prospects,  Mr.  Depew  felt  it  his  duty  to 
withdraw  from  politics  and  to  devote  himself  assiduously  to  his 


CHAUNCEY  MITCHELL  DEPEW  xvii 

chosen  profession,  the  law.  This  he  was  enabled  to  do  with  a 
greater  promise  of  success  than  in  his  earlier  days,  for  the  ex- 
perience won  in  his  political  career  had  brought  with  it  a  confi- 
dence in  himself  and  his  resources  and  a  matured  knowledge  of 
men  and  of  affairs  that  made  him  the  equal  of  any  among  his  con- 
temporaries, even  of  his  superiors  in  years.  About  this  time  he 
attracted  the  attention  of  Cornelius  Vanderbilt,  whose  success 
in  steamboat  navigation  had  won  him  the  popular  sobriquet  of 
"Commodore,"  and  who  had  already  laid  the  foundation  of  the 
great  railway  system  afterwards  known  as  the  "Vanderbilt  sys- 
tem." Mr.  Depew,  who  had  won  the  friendship  of  the  Commo- 
dore's son,  William  H.  Vanderbilt,  was  surprised  one  day  by  an 
offer  of  a  position  in  the  railway  service. 

"Politics  don't  pay,  Chauncey,"  said  the  Commodore.     "The 
business  of  the  future  in  this  country  is  railroading." 

This  settled  the  question  of  Mr.  Depew's  future  and  he  at 
once  accepted  the  offer  and  applied  himself  to  the  study  of  rail- 
road transportation  in  which  he  won  so  signal  a  success.  In 
1866  he  became  attorney  for  the  New  York  and  Harlem  Rail- 
road Company,  and  in  1869,  when  this  road  was  consolidated 
with  the  New  York  Central  Railroad  with  Commodore  Vander- 
bilt at  its  head,  Mr.  Depew  was  chosen  attorney  for  the  new 
corporation  and  later  a  member  of  its  Board  of  Directors.  As 
the  Vanderbilt  railway  system  expanded  Mr.  Depew's  interests 
and  duties  increased  in  a  corresponding  degree,  and  in  1875  he 
was  appointed  General  Counsel  for  the  entire  system  and  elected 
a  Director  in  each  of  the  roads  of  which  it  was  composed.  The 
system  comprised  at  the  time,  besides  the  New  York  Central, 
Harlem,  and  Hudson  River  Railroads,  the  Lake  Shore  and 
Michigan  Southern ;  the  Michigan  Central ;  the  Canada  Southern ; 
the  Chicago  and  Northwestern;  the  Chicago,  St.  Paul,  Minne- 
apolis, and  Omaha ;  the  West  Shore ;  the  Nickel  Plate ;  the  Boston 
and  Albany;  the  Cleveland,  Cincinnati,  Chicago,  and  St.  Louis; 
the  Chesapeake  and  Ohio ;  the  Milwaukee,  Lake  Shore,  and  West- 
ern; the  Rome,  Watertown,  and  Ogdensburg;  the  Dunkirk,  Alle- 
gheny Valley,  and  Pittsburg;  the  Walkill  Valley;  the  Beech 
Creek;  the  Carthage  and  Adirondack;  and  the  Gouveneur  and 
Oswegatchie  railroads. 

In  1872,  at  the  earnest  solicitation  of  Horace  Greeley,  Mr. 
Depew  permitted  the  use  of  his  name  as  a  candidate  for  Lieu- 


xviii  ORATIONS  AND  MEMORIAL  ADDRESSES 

tenant-governor  on  the  Liberal  Republican  or  Greeley  ticket, 
and  shared,  as  he  had  probably  expected,  in  the  defeat  of  that 
party.  But  he  acted  with  the  Republican  Party  the  next  year, 
as  he  had  done  every  year  previous  to  1872  since  his  graduation 
at  Yale,  and  he  canvassed  the  State  and  country  in  behalf  of 
that  party  in  every  important  election  after  that  date.  In  1874 
he  was  chosen  by  the  Legislature  a  Regent  of  the  State  Universi- 
ty and  also  one  of  the  Commissioners  to  build  the  Capitol  at 
Albany. 

In  1 88 1,  when  the  famous  quarrel  with  President  Garfield 
was  followed  by  the  resignation  from  the  United  States  Senate 
of  Roscoe  Conkling  and  Thomas  C.  Piatt,  Mr.  Depew  was  a 
favorite  candidate  for  the  succession  to  the  unexpired  term  of 
Mr.  Piatt  and  would  probably  have  won  if  the  assassination  of 
President  Garfield  had  not  thrilled  the  nation  with  horror  and 
brought  about  a  termination  of  the  long  struggle.  The  Legis- 
lature adjourned  on  the  announcement  of  the  tragedy  and  when 
it  reassembled  Mr.  Depew,  who  had  led  in  the  contest  and  needed 
but  ten  votes  for  an  election,  was  the  first  to  point  the  duty  of 
the  hour  in  a  manly  letter  after  the  fortieth  ballot  had  shown 
his  undiminished  strength.  "Neither  the  State  nor  the  Party," 
he  said,  "can  afford  to  have  New  York  unrepresented  in  the 
National  Councils.  A  great  crime  has  plunged  the  nation  into 
sorrow,  and  in  the  midst  of  the  prayers  and  the  tears  of  the 
whole  people,  supplicating  for  the  recovery  and  weeping  over  the 
wound  of  the  President,  this  partisan  strife  should  cease."  After 
grateful  acknowledgment  to  those  who  had  so  zealously  sup- 
ported him  in  the  long  struggle,  saying  "their  devotion  will  be 
the  pride  of  my  life  and  the  heritage  of  my  children,"  Mr. 
Depew  withdrew  his  name  and  on  the  eighth  of  July  the  Caucus 
nominated  Warner  Miller,  who  was  elected  in  joint  convention 
on  the  forty-eighth  ballot. 

Amid  the  glowing  tributes  of  the  thoughtful  men  of  his  party 
for  the  noble  disinterestedness  that  led  him  to  offer  himself  a 
sacrifice  for  its  interests,  Mr.  Depew  left  the  political  field  and 
resumed  his  ordinary  work  as  if  nothing  of  consequence  had 
happened  to  interrupt  the  current  of  his  life.  But  his  party 
friends  did  not  forget  his  loyalty  and  devotion  and  five  years 
later,  when  the  Republicans  had  a  majority  of  nearly  two-thirds 
in  the  Legislature,  the  United  States  senatorship  was  offered  to 


CHAUNCEY  MITCHELL  DEPEW  xix 

him ;  but  he  had  then  become  committed  to  so  many  business  and 
professional  engagements  that  he  felt  obliged  to  decline  the 
honor. 

The  resignation  of  Mr.  William  H.  Vanderbilt  from  the  presi- 
dency of  the  New  York  Central  had  led  meanwhile  to  a  reor- 
ganization of  the  company,  in  which  Mr.  James  H.  Rutter  was 
made  President  and  Mr.  Depew  Second  Vice-president;  and  on 
the  death  of  Mr.  Rutter  in  1885  Mr.  Depew  was  elevated  to  the 
presidency,  thus  becoming  the  executive  head  of  one  of  the  great- 
est railway  corporations  in  the  world,  a  position  of  unlimited 
wealth  and  power.  This  office  he  held  for  thirteen  years,  exe- 
cuting with  skill  and  ability  the  duties  connected  with  it,  acting 
meanwhile  also  as  president  of  six  other  railway  companies 
allied  to  the  Vanderbilt  system,  and  as  a  director  in  twenty-eight 
additional  lines.  On  his  resignation  of  the  presidency  in  1898, 
he  was  made  Chairman  of  the  Board  of  Directors  of  the  entire 
Vanderbilt  system  of  railroads,  a  position  he  still  holds. 

In  1888,  when  Mr.  Depew  was  Delegate  at  Large  from  the 
State  of  New  York  to  the  Republican  National  Convention  at 
Chicago,  his  name  was  presented  as  a  candidate  for  the  presi- 
dential nomination,  and  his  State  cast  its  seventy  votes  as  a 
unit  for  him.  On  subsequent  ballots  this  was  considerably  in- 
creased and  his  strength  as  a  candidate  was  generally  acknowl- 
edged, but  when  it  became  apparent,  from  opposition  in  the 
West,  that  the  nomination  of  one  so  strongly  allied  to  railway 
interests  might  imperil  the  success  of  the  party  in  States  prev- 
iously Republican,  he  asked  the  New  York  delegation  to  consent 
to  the  withdrawal  of  his  name.  After  informing  the  Convention 
in  a  forcible  and  dignified  speech  that  a  nomination  at  all  haz- 
ards was  not  the  goal  of  his  ambition,  and  declining  to  receive 
further  ballots,  he  resumed  his  place  as  Delegate  at  Large  and 
by  strenuous  efforts  secured  the  nomination  of  Benjamin  Har- 
rison. After  election  President  Harrison  tendered  to  Mr.  Depew 
any  place  in  his  Cabinet  except  Secretary  of  State  which  had 
been  promised  to  Mr.  James  G.  Blaine,  but  Mr.  Depew  felt  ob- 
liged to  decline. 

At  the  next  Republican  National  Convention,  at  Minneapolis 
in  1892,  when  most  of  the  national  leaders  of  the  party  were 
opposed  to  the  renomination  of  President  Harrison,  Mr.  Depew, 
at  the  request  of  the  President  and  the  Harrison  forces  and  with 


Xx  ORATIONS  AND  MEMORIAL  ADDRESSES 

the  object  of  influencing  opinion  in  his  behalf,  delivered  several 
addresses  in  Minneapolis  before  the  meeting  of  the  Convention, 
realizing  that  he  would  have  among  his  hearers  many  of  its  mem- 
bers; and  in  the  Convention  he  made  a  speech  in  advocacy  of 
the  nomination  of  President  Harrison  for  a  second  term  so  able 
and  convincing  as  to  contribute  materially  to  the  result.  That 
Mr.  Harrison  appreciated  his  efforts  in  his  behalf  was  shown  in 
his  earnest  invitation  to  Mr.  Depew  to  accept  the  place  in  his 
cabinet  of  Secretary  of  State,  made  vacant  by  the  resignation  of 
Mr.  Blaine.  But  Mr.  Depew,  recognizing  that  the  same  reasons 
which  actuated  his  determination  to  withdraw  from  the  presi- 
dential race  in  1888  still  militated  against  his  acceptance  of  any 
political  office — that  such  acceptance  by  one  so  prominently 
identified  with  railway  interests  might  lead  to  the  raising  of  new 
issues  in  the  States  in  which  such  questions  were  still  unsettled — 
felt  compelled  to  decline  the  honor. 

In  addition  to  his  railway  and  political  engagements,  exacting 
enough  to  occupy  the  entire  time  of  a  less  active  man,  Mr.  Depew 
has  numerous  social  and  semi-social  duties.  He  is  a  member  of 
many  societies,  such  as  the  Huguenot  Society,  the  Holland  and 
St.  Nicholas  Societies,  the  New  England  Society,  the  Sons  of  the 
American  Revolution,  the  Masonic  Order,  and  of  numerous 
clubs  and  other  organizations,  all  of  which  involve  diverse  re- 
sponsibilities. He  was  for  many  years  in  succession  elected 
President  of  the  Yale  Alumni  Association  of  New  York,  declin- 
ing a  reelection  after  a  decade  of  service,  and  was  for  twelve 
years  a  member  of  the  Yale  Corporation.  For  seven  successive 
years,  too,  he  was  President  of  the  Union  League  Club,  a  longer 
term  than  ever  held  by  any  other,  and  on  declining  further  elec- 
tion was  made  an  honorary  life  member.  He  is  also  a  member 
of  the  New  York  Chamber  of  Commerce  and  a  director  of  so 
many  financial,  fiduciary,  and  other  corporations  and  trusts  that 
it  is  impossible  to  enumerate  them  in  so  brief  a  sketch. 

Though  burdened  with  such  responsibilities  Mr.  Depew  always 
finds  time  for  rest  and  recreation.  This  is  not  only  because  he 
displays  a  phenomenal  capacity  for  the  disposal  of  work,  but 
because  he  so  systematizes  his  labors  that  one  occupation  is  never 
permitted  to  interfere  with  another.  His  rest  and  recreation  are 
found  rather  in  change  of  occupation  than  in  the  repose  which 
most  men  seek  after  their  labors,  and  he  returns  from  reading 


CHAUNCEY  MITCHELL  DEPEW  xxi 

and  study  to  weightier  cares  refreshed  and  reinvigorated.  In  an 
address  before  the  graduating  class  of  Columbia  University  Law 
School  in  1882  he  emphasized  the  value  of  utilizing  odd  hours 
by  relating  the  response  of  Henry  J.  Raymond,  editor  of  the  New 
York  Times  who  was  writing  his  "Life  of  Lincoln,"  to  a  query 
of  his  own.  "How  is  it  possible  for  you,"  he  asked,  "editing  a 
great  daily  newspaper  and  immersed  in  public  affairs,  to  find  time 
for  the  research  necessary  to  gather  the  materials  and  for  the 
composition  of  this  work?"  "An  hour  conscientiously  devoted 
every  morning  before  breakfast,"  replied  Mr.  Raymond,  "will 
soon  fill  a  library."  He  quoted  also  the  advice  to  our  Class  at 
Yale  of  the  elder  Professor  Silliman,  that  grand  old  man  then 
long  past  his  allotted  three  score  years  and  ten :  "Young  gentle- 
men, as  the  result  of  my  experience  and  observation  I  have  one 
piece  of  advice  to  give  you.  Improve  with  reading  the  odd  five 
minutes.     It  is  astonishing  how  many  of  them  there  are." 

Mr.  Depew's  chief  recreation  is  public  speaking.  "Speech- 
making  is  a  tonic  to  me,"  he  has  said,  "and  not  an  occupation  of 
wear  and  tear.  It  gets  the  mind  into  another  channel  and  an- 
swers the  same  purpose  as  the  Greek  and  Latin  translation  of  Mr. 
Gladstone;  as  horse-driving  did  to  Commodore  Vanderbilt,  and 
as  cards  do  to  most  business  men.  The  difference  between 
my  recreation  and  that  of  other  business  men  is  that  mine  is 
all  in  public."  What  would  be  a  subject  of  anxiety  and  of 
long  and  hard  labor  to  most  men  is  but  a  necessary  diversion  to 
him.  His  more  important  orations  and  addresses  are  dictated 
to  a  stenographer  and  typewritten,  though  his  memory  is  so  ten- 
acious that  he  never  uses  notes  in  delivery ;  but  many  of  his  after- 
dinner  speeches  are  extemporaneous,  born  of  the  time  and  the 
occasion,  for  he  has  the  rare  talent  of  thinking  on  his  feet  and 
is  never  at  a  loss  for  a  word  or  a  simile. 

It  is  doubtful  if  any  other  public  speaker,  either  in  the  past 
or  the  present,  has  shown  such  versatility  in  the  choice  of  sub- 
jects as  Mr.  Depew.  "The  soldiers  and  statesmen  of  the  Revolu- 
tion," says  a  late  chronicler,  "have  had  their  virtues  eulogized  by 
Mr.  Depew  on  centennial  occasions;  the  political  and  military 
leaders  of  the  Civil  War  have  had  their  services  commemorated 
by  him  in  memorial  addresses  delivered  while  the  nation  was  still 
in  mourning  at  their  graves;  eminent  authors,  actors,  and  dis- 
coverers, foreign  and  native-born,  have  been  introduced  to  ex- 


xxii  ORATIONS  AND  MEMORIAL  ADDRESSES 

pectant  audiences  or  made  welcome  at  hospitable  clubs  in  his 
thrice-familiar  voice ;  religious,  political,  educational,  commercial, 
legal,  medical,  athletic,  literary,  and  even  agricultural  gatherings 
have  listened  with  delight  to  speeches  calculated  to  a  nicety  for 
the  intellectual  latitude  in  which  they  found  expression.  Some- 
times Mr.  Depew  has  made  an  address  that  was  mirth-provok- 
ing from  beginning  to  end ;  but  oftener  he  has  veiled  some  serious 
intent  behind  the  mask  of  raillery;  and  as  often,  again,  has  he 
spoken  on  questions  whose  gravity  has  forced  his  laughter-loving 
side  into  complete  retirement.  His  model,  when  historical  themes 
engage  his  attention,  is  Macaulay;  and  his  peparations  to  de- 
liver an  historical  address  consists  partly  in  reading  over  several 
of  Macaulay's  essays.  The  clear  staccato  quality  of  his  periods, 
in  all  his  serious  utterances,  must  remind  the  reader  or  listener 
of  his  illustrious  exemplar ;  and  it  would  be  hard  to  choose  a  more 
effective  model  for  such  orations,  delivered  in  the  main  before 
people  who  prize  lucidity  above  all  other  qualities  in  speech  or 
writing." 

W  Mr.  Depew  has  been  often  called  one  of  the  best  of  after- 
dinner  speakers,  but  such  a  characterization,  though  eminently 
true,  does  him  an  injustice,  for  that  is  but  one  phase  of  his  many- 
sided  eloquence.  Justin  McCarthy,  in  his  "Reminiscences,"  dis- 
cussing Lord  Rosebery  as  an  after-dinner  speaker,  says :  "I  rank 
him  with  Charles  Dickens,  with  the  late  Lord  Granville,  with 
James  Russell  Lowell  and  with  Chauncey  Depew,  and  I  do  not 
know  that  I  can  say  anything  higher  in  praise.  I  had  many  op- 
portunities of  meeting  Dickens,  and  of  course  heard  all  his  read- 
ings and  heard  him  deliver  several  after-dinner  speeches.  Let 
me  say  at  once  that  he  was  the  very  best  after-dinner  speaker 
I  ever  heard.  I  do  not  quite  know  whom  I  should  put  second  to 
him.  Sometimes  I  feel  inclined  to  give  Mr.  James  Russell  Lowell 
that  second  place  and  sometimes  my  mind  impels  me  to  give  it  to 
Mr.  Lowell's  countryman,  Mr.  Chauncey  Depew." 

The  author  of  "Off  hand  Sketches  of  Prominent  New  York- 
ers" very  correctly  says:  "The  characteristic  of  Mr.  Depew's 
speaking  is  that  it  does  not  depend  upon  verbal  jokes  nor  funny 
stories  for  its  success.  It  is  the  true  humor  which  grows  natur- 
ally out  of  the  subject,  and  is  based  upon  a  common  substratum 
of  common  sense.  To  adapt  it,  therefore,  for  the  bar,  or  the 
political  rostrum,  or  the  legislative  committee,  Mr.  Depew  has 


CHAUNCEY  MITCHELL  DEPEW  xxiii 

only  to  restrain  the  humor  a  little  and  push  the  common  sense 
to  the  front.  But  whether  at  the  social  board,  or  before  the 
courts,  or  upon  the  stump,  or  in  the  legislature,  his  grave,  earnest, 
serious  manner  never  varies.  He  is  as  seemingly  unconscious  of 
what  he  says  as  poor  Artemus  Ward  used  to  be ;  he  has  the  sol- 
emnity without  the  tedious  slowness  of  Mark  Twain.  For  the 
felicity  of  his  phrases,  the  force  of  his  expressions,  the  calm, 
even,  steady  flow  of  his  language,  he  has  seldom  been  equaled 
and  never  surpassed.  While  he  is  speaking,  without  the  slight- 
est apparent  effort,  you  wonder  at  the  copiousness  of  his  vo- 
cabulary ;  but  he  is  as  terse  as  he  is  fluent.  His  oratory  is  like  a 
broad,  deep,  mighty  river,  upon  which  tiny  pleasure  boats  of  wit 
and  humor  can  dance  in  the  sunshine,  but  which  is  also  capable 
of  sustaining  and  transporting  the  heavily  weighted  argosies  of 
law  and  politics." 

It  is  impossible  to  speak  in  detail,  within  the  limits  of  an 
article  like  this,  of  Mr.  Depew's  numerous  and  varied  efforts  in 
the  field  of  oratory  in  which  he  has  won  a  success  scarcely  equaled 
by  any  of  his  contemporaries ;  but  the  reader  will  find  an  attempt 
at  their  classification  in  the  following  eight  volumes  of  speeches 
covering  so  many  departments  of  literature  that  one  is  led  to 
wonder  how  any  one  man,  and  especially  one  burdened  with  so 
many  cares  and  who  has  not  made  public  speaking  a  profession, 
could  compass  so  much  in  a  lifetime. 

Though  Mr.  Depew  has  not,  until  late  years,  filled  any  im- 
portant national  position,  he  is  probably  better  known,  both  at 
home  and  abroad,  than  many  men  of  world-wide  reputation. 
With  a  few  exceptions,  he  is  the  best-known  American  living 
to-day,  and  his  yearly  visits  to  Europe  have  made  his  personality 
familiar  to  almost  everybody,  from  crowned  heads  to  the  common 
people.  His  goings  and  comings  are  chronicled  everywhere,  and 
he  is  always  met,  on  either  side  of  the  Atlantic,  by  reporters  from 
the  newspapers  anxious  to  describe  his  appearance,  the  details  of 
his  costume,  his  destination  and  engagements,  and  to  get  his 
opinion  on  every  conceivable  subject  whether  of  politics,  business, 
society,  or  recreation.  This  is  partly  because  of  his  accessibility, 
for,  unlike  most  prominent  men  of  affairs,  he  does  not  hedge 
himself  in  with  impenetrable  dignity,  but  is  as  ready  to  welcome 
the  employees  as  the  directors  of  his  company ;  and  partly  because 
of  the  kindness  of  heart  that  prompts  such  accessibility  and  makes 


xxiv  ORATIONS  AND  MEMORIAL  ADDRESSES 

him  a  friend  of  every  reporter  that  comes  to  him  for  "copy." 
This  renders  him  an  inexhaustible  subject  for  the  paragrapher 
and  the  photographer,  while  his  name  and  his  face  are  as  familiar 
to  everyone  as  household  words.  He  is  read  about  in  every 
newspaper,  is  seen  in  cartoons  in  Punch  and  in  Vanity  Fair, 
sometimes  posed  in  a  Gladstonian  attitude  from  a  suggestion  of 
his  resemblance  to  the  great  statesman,  and,  after  a  season  of 
social  successes,  in  which  he  has  perhaps  hob-nobbed  with  royalty, 
receives  from  Lord  Rosebery,  on  sailing  for  home,  a  telegram 
saying:  "Your  departure  eclipses  the  gayety  of  nations." 

Mr.  Depew's  orations  and  addresses  are  virtually  a  history  of 
the  past  half  century ;  and  not  only  a  mere  record  of  events,  but 
a  political,  industrial,  commercial,  educational,  and  social  picture 
of  the  period  in  which  he  has  been  one  of  the  most  conspicuous 
figures.  He  has  taken  part  in  every  presidential  election  since 
1856,  when  fresh  from  college  he  made  his  maiden  speech  for  the 
Pathfinder,  and  in  every  important  political  contest  not  only  in 
his  own  State  but  also  in  other  States  where  the  need  of  his 
party  called  him;  he  has  too  borne  a  chief  part  in  the  councils  of 
his  party,  has  been  on  intimate  terms  with  every  President  since 
Buchanan  and  with  almost  every  contemporary  man  of  promi- 
nence, and  has  himself,  on  several  occasions,  borne  the  standard 
of  his  party  to  victory.  He  has  been  even  more  prominent  in  our 
industrial  and  commercial  history,  bearing  through  many  labori- 
ous years  the  burden  of  the  greatest  railway  system  of  this  or 
of  any  other  country,  building  up  its  interests,  adding  to  its  capa- 
bilities, and  enlarging  its  scope,  until  it  became,  under  his  manage- 
ment, the  most  important  and  wealthiest  transportation  corpora- 
tion of  the  world.  We  must  not  forget,  too,  to  note  that  he  has 
found  time  also  to  edit  a  series  of  the  great  orations  of  the  world 
in  twenty-four  volumes,  and  a  massive  work  entitled  "One  Hun- 
dred Years  of  American  Commerce,"  a  series  of  articles  illus- 
trating the  progress  of  our  country  during  the  century.  And 
through  all  the  years  of  a  busy  life,  full  of  laborious  duties  that 
would  have  broken  down  most  men,  he  has  never  lost  sight  of 
his  interest  in  education,  the  heritage  of  his  years  at  Yale,  keeping 
pace  with  its  growth  and  its  needs,  and  aiding  in  the  construction 
of  its  future.  His  numerous  educational  addresses,  which  fill  a 
volume,  covering  almost  every  phase  of  the  subject,  delivered 
before  law  schools,  medical  schools,  and  other  branches  of  the 


CHAUNCEY  MITCHELL  DEPEW  xxv 

curriculum,  are  almost  an  education  in  themselves,  though  he 
never  poses  as  a  teacher,  combining  the  best  of  advice  and  the 
most  practical  of  suggestions  inspired  by  his  successful  career. 

Notwithstanding  these  varied  responsibilities,  Mr.  Depew  has 
always  found  time  for  the  social  duties  and  requirements  made 
necessary  by  his  position  and  by  the  immense  acquaintance  which 
it  has  entailed.  Probably  no  other  American  has  had  a  larger 
or  better  social  connection,  whether  in  this  country  or  in  Europe, 
and  no  other  has  ever  found  a  warmer  welcome  in  the  salon  or 
at  the  dinner  table.  His  genial  personality,  his  wide  range  of 
experience  and  of  observation,  his  ripe  scholarship  and  trained 
intellectual  force,  his  conversation  that  flows  without  effort,  his 
quick  sense  of  humor,  and  his  scintillant  wit  make  his  presence 
at  the  banquet  table  almost  a  necessity.  He  possesses  in  per- 
fection that  rarest  of  gifts — the  talent  of  being  ever  ready  to  re- 
spond to  a  toast  or  sentiment — and  no  matter  how  brilliant  the 
entertainment  or  how  distinguished  the  other  guests  may  be,  a 
banquet  without  his  presence  is  like  the  play  of  Hamlet  with 
Hamlet  left  out. 

During  all  his  business  and  political  engagements  and  his 
social  successes  "Our  Chauncey,"  as  he  is  familiarly  called,  has 
always  been  true  to  Alma  Mater  Yale  and  to  the  Class  of  '56, 
which  he  has  so  materially  helped  to  win  its  sobriquet  of  "fa- 
mous." He  has  been  present  at  most  of  the  Class  Reunions,  and 
when  obliged  by  untoward  circumstances  to  absent  himself  has 
sent  expressions  of  regard  which  were  appreciated  and  recipro- 
cated by  his  classmates.  At  our  fiftieth  anniversary,  when  illness 
prevented  his  attendance,  his  absence  was  universally  regretted 
and  a  telegram  of  condolence  expressing  the  sympathy  of  the 
Class  was  sent  to  him. 

Mr.  Depew  received  his  A.M.  in  course  and  in  1887,  when 
he  delivered  the  annual  address  to  the  Yale  Law  School,  was 
given  the  honorary  degree  of  LL.D.  In  the  following  year  he 
was  elected  a  member  of  the  Yale  Corporation,  a  position  which 
he  held  by  reelection  until  1906. 

In  1898,  after  thirteen  years  of  arduous  service  as  President 
of  the  New  York  Central  and  its  allied  railroads,  Mr.  Depew 
resigned,  and  in  1899  he  was  elected  a  member  of  the  United 
States  Senate  in  succession  to  Edward  Murphy,  Jr.,  Democrat. 
In  1905  he  was  reelected  for  the  term  ending  in  191 1.     It  is 


xxvi  ORATIONS  AND  MEMORIAL  ADDRESSES 

almost  needless  to  say  that  in  his  long  service  in  the  Senate  he 
has  won  the  praise  not  only  of  his  native  State  but  of  the  Nation 
for  his  ability  and  his  grasp  of  the  great  questions  of  the  day. 
He  has  served  on  important  committees,  has  taken  part  in  all 
the  great  debates,  making  speeches  that  have  won  the  attention 
of  the  Senate  and  of  the  country,  and  has  reached  a  position 
where  he  is  an  honor  to  the  great  State  which  he  so  well  and  so 
ably  represents. 

An  old  Senator  said  to  the  writer,  "Senator  Depew  is  dis- 
tinguished in  the  Senate  for  making  speeches  in  which  the  ques- 
tion discussed  is  put  so  lucidly  and  entertainingly  that  they  are  in 
general  demand  from  Senators  and  Members  of  Congress  for 
distribution  in  the  various  States  and  among  their  constituents. 
His  speech  on  the  tariff,  which  was  an  illuminating  history  and 
discussion  of  that  question  on  general  lines,  differed  from  others 
because  they  are  devoted  mainly  to  schedules.  Several  millions 
of  copies  of  this  speech  have  been  distributed  and  the  demand 
seems  to  be  continuous.  He  is  more  successful  than  almost 
anyone  in  either  House  in  getting  bills  passed  relating  to  his 
State.  As  a  member  of  the  Committee  on  Commerce,  he  has 
succeeded  in  securing  every  appropriation  that  has  been  asked  for, 
and  they  amount  to  enormous  sums,  for  the  Harbor  of  New 
York,  the  Hudson  River  improvement,  the  barge  canal,  and 
the  ports  on  the  Great  Lakes  within  the  boundaries  of  the  State 
of  New  York. 

When  New  York  City  wanted  between  three  and  four  mil- 
lions of  dollars  for  another  post  office,  uptown,  it  encountered  such 
general  hostility  from  places  all  over  the  country  that  had  only 
one  post  office  building  or  none,  that  it  failed  in  the  House  and 
was  rejected  by  the  Committee  on  Appropriations  of  the  Senate. 
Before  offering  it  upon  the  floor,  Senator  Depew  canvassed  the 
Senators  individually,  all  of  whom  wished  to  oblige  him  in 
any  matter  in  which  he  was  deeply  interested.  Senator  Allison, 
the  Chairman  of  the  Appropriation  Committee,  said  he  would 
agree  to  it  if  the  Democrats  would  assent.  The  Democrats, 
through  their  leader,  Senator  Gorman,  had  announced  their  op- 
position to  all  appropriations  other  than  those  in  the  bill,  and  to 
many  that  were  in  the  bill.  Mr.  Depew  was  on  very  cordial 
terms  with  Senator  Gorman,  the  Democratic  leader,  and  he  said 
he  would  agree  to  it  if  Senator  Allison  would  assent,  believing 


CHAUNCEY  MITCHELL  DEPEW  xxvii 

that  to  be  improbable.  When  Mr.  Depew  proposed  the  amend- 
ment, Senator  Allison  said  nothing  but  looked  at  Gorman  and 
Gorman  said  nothing  but  looked  at  Allison  and  the  appropriation 
went  into  the  bill. 

Efforts  had  been  made  for  a  half  century  for  Government 
liability  to  its  employees  for  injuries  in  the  service  similar  to  the 
law  governing  corporations.  It  had  always  failed.  President 
Roosevelt  and  Mr.  Taft,  then  Secretary  of  War,  put  the  matter 
in  the  hands  of  Senator  Depew.  In  the  last  hour  of  the  closing 
session  he  created  parliamentary  conditions  where  this  bill  had 
the  right  of  way  and  must  be  either  killed  or  passed  to  permit 
the  large  mass  of  necessary  acts  to  pass.  A  quick  appeal  and 
vote  and  the  bill  went  to  the  President  and  became  a  law. 

As  Mr.  Depew  is  still  in  the  plenitude  of  his  powers,  physi- 
cally, mentally,  and  intellectually,  every  good  citizen  will  pray 
that  he  may  long  be  spared  to  represent  the  Empire  State  and  its 
interests,  and  that  no  political  exigency  may  be  invented  to  retire 
him  from  a  position  which  he  has  so  honored  and  adorned. 

John  D.  Champlin. 


ORATIONS  AND  MEMORIAL 
ADDRESSES 


WASHINGTON'S    INAUGURATION 


ORATION  ON  THE  ONE  HUNDREDTH  ANNIVERSARY  OF  THE  INAUG- 
URATION OF  PRESIDENT  WASHINGTON,  ON  THE  SITE  OF 
FEDERAL  HALL,1  NEW  YORK,  APRIL  30,   1 889. 

We  celebrate  to-day  the  Centenary  of  our  Nationality.  One 
hundred  years  ago  the  United  States  began  their  existence.  The 
powers  of  government  were  assumed  by  the  people  of  the  Repub- 
lic, and  they  became  the  sole  source  of  authority.  The  solemn 
ceremonial  of  the  first  inauguration,  the  reverent  oath  of  Wash- 
ington, the  acclaim  of  the  multitude  greeting  their  President, 
marked  the  most  unique  event  of  modern  times  in  the  develop- 
ment of  free  institutions. 

The  occasion  was  not  an  accident,  but  a  result.  It  was  the 
culmination  of  the  working  out  by  mighty  forces  through  many 
centuries  of  the  problem  of  self-government.  It  was  not  the 
triumph  of  a  system,  the  application  of  a  theory,  or  the  reduction 
to  practice  of  the  abstractions  of  philosophy.  The  time,  the 
country,  the  heredity  and  environment  of  the  people,  and  the  folly 
of  its  enemies,  and  the  noble  courage  of  its  friends,  gave  to 
liberty,  after  ages  of  defeat,  of  trial,  of  experiment,  of  partial 
success  and  substantial  gains,  this  immortal  victory.  Henceforth 
it  had  a  refuge  and  recruiting  station.  The  oppressed  found  free 
homes  in  this  favored  land,  and  invisible  armies  marched  from 
it  by  mail  and  telegraph,  by  speech  and  song,  by  precept  and 
example,  to  regenerate  the  world. 

Puritans  in  New  England,  Dutchmen  in  New  York,  Catholics 
in  Maryland,  Huguenots  in  South  Carolina,  had  felt  the  fires  of 
persecution  and  were  wedded  to  religious  liberty.  They  had  been 
purified  in  the  furnace,  and  in  high  debate  and  on  bloody  battle- 

^ederal  Hall  stood  on  the  corner  of  Wall  and  Nassau  Streets,  facing  Broad  Street,  the 
site  of  the  present  U.   S.   Sub-Treasury.     It  was  torn   down  in   1812. — Ed. 

Vol.  I— 1  1 


2  ORATIONS   AND   MEMORIAL   ADDRESSES 

fields  had  learned  to  sacrifice  all  material  interests  and  to  peril 
their  lives  for  human  rights.  The  principles  of  constitutional 
government  had  been  impressed  upon  them  by  hundreds  of  years 
of  struggle,  and  for  each  principle  they  could  point  to  the  grave 
of  an  ancestor  whose  death  attested  the  ferocity  of  the  fight  and 
the  value  of  the  concession  wrung  from  arbitrary  power.  They 
knew  the  limitations  of  authority;  they  could  pledge  their  lives 
and  fortunes  to  resist  encroachments  upon  their  rights;  but  it 
required  the  lessen  of  Indian  massacres,  the  invasion  of  the 
armies  of  France  from  Canada,  the  tyranny  of  the  British  Crown, 
the  seven  years'  war  of  the  Revolution,  and  the  five  years  of 
chaos  of  the  Confederation,  to  evolve  the  idea,  upon  which  rest 
the  power  and  permanency  of  the  Republic,  that  liberty  and  union 
are  one  and  inseparable. 

The  traditions  and  experience  of  the  colonists  had  made  them 
alert  to  discover,  and  quick  to  resist,  any  peril  to  their  liberties. 
Above  all  things,  they  feared  and  distrusted  power.  The  town 
meeting  and  the  colonial  legislature  gave  them  confidence  in  them- 
selves, and  courage  to  check  the  royal  governors.  Their  inter- 
ests, hopes,  and  affections  were  in  their  several  commonwealths, 
and  each  blow  by  the  British  Ministry  at  their  freedom,  each 
attack  upon  their  rights  as  Englishmen,  weakened  their  love  for 
the  Motherland  and  intensified  their  hostility  to  the  Crown.  But 
the  same  causes  which  broke  down  their  allegiance  to  the  Central 
Government  increased  their  confidence  in  their  respective  colonies, 
and  their  faith  in  liberty  was  largely  dependent  upon  the  mainte- 
nance of  the  sovereignty  of  their  several  States.  The  farmers' 
shot  at  Lexington  echoed  round  the  world;  the  spirit  which  it 
awakened  from  its  slumbers  could  do  and  dare  and  die,  but  it 
had  not  yet  discovered  the  secret  of  the  permanence  and  progress 
of  free  institutions.  Patrick  Henry  thundered  in  the  Virginia 
convention;  James  Otis  spoke  with  trumpet  tongue  and  fervid 
eloquence  for  united  action  in  Massachusetts ;  Hamilton,  Jay,  and 
Clinton  pledged  New  York  to  respond  with  men  and  money  for 
the  common  cause;  but  their  vision  saw  only  a  league  of  inde- 
pendent colonies.  The  veil  was  not  yet  drawn  from  before  the 
vista  of  population  and  power,  of  empire  and  liberty,  which  would 
open  with  National  Union. 

The  Continental  Congress  partially  grasped,  but  completely 
expressed,  the  central  idea  of  the  American  Republic.     More 


WASHINGTON'S  INAUGURATION  3 

fully  than  any  other  that  ever  assembled  did  it  represent  the 
victories  won  from  arbitrary  power  for  human  rights.  In  the 
New  World  it  was  the  conservator  of  liberties  secured  through 
centuries  of  struggle  in  the  Old.  Among  the  delegates  were  the 
descendants  of  men  who  had  stood  in  the  brilliant  array  upon 
the  field  of  Runnymede,  who  wrested  from  King  John  Magna 
Charta,  that  great  charter  of  liberty,  to  which  Hallam,  in  the 
nineteenth  century,  bears  witness  "that  all  which  has  been  since 
obtained  is  little  more  than  a  confirmation  or  commentary." 
There  were  the  grandchildren  of  the  statesmen  who  had  sum- 
moned Charles  before  Parliament  and  compelled  his  assent  to  the 
Petition  of  Rights  which  transferred  power  from  the  Crown  to 
the  Commons,  and  gave  representative  government  to  the  English- 
speaking  race.  And  there  were  those  who  had  sprung  from  the 
iron  soldiers  who  had  fought  and  charged  with  Cromwell  at 
Naseby  and  Dunbar  and  Marston  Moor.  Among  its  members 
were  Huguenots,  whose  fathers  had  followed  the  White  Plume 
of  Henry  of  Navarre,  and  in  an  age  of  bigotry,  intolerance,  and 
the  deification  of  absolutism,  had  secured  the  great  edict  of 
religious  liberty  from  French  despotism,  and  who  had  become  a 
people  without  a  country  rather  than  surrender  their  convictions 
and  forswear  their  consciences.  In  this  Congress  were  those 
whose  ancestors  were  the  countrymen  of  William  of  Orange,  the 
Beggars  of  the  Sea,  who  had  survived  the  cruelties  of  Alva  and 
broken  the  yoke  of  proud  Philip  of  Spain,  and  who  had  two  centu- 
ries before  made  a  declaration  of  independence  and  formed  a 
federal  union  which  were  models  of  freedom  and  strength. 

These  men  were  not  revolutionists,  they  were  the  heirs  and 
the  guardians  of  the  priceless  treasures  of  mankind.  The  British 
King  and  his  Ministers  were  the  revolutionists.  They  were 
reactionaries,  seeking  arbitrarily  to  turn  back  the  hands  on  the 
dial  of  time.  A  year  of  doubt  and  debate,  the  baptism  of  blood 
upon  the  battle-fields,  where  soldiers  from  every  colony  fought 
under  a  common  standard  and  consolidated  the  Continental 
Army,  gradually  lifted  the  soul  and  understanding  of  this  immor- 
tal Congress  to  the  sublime  declaration:  "We,  therefore,  the 
representatives  of  the  United  States  of  America,  in  General  Con- 
gress assembled,  appealing  to  the  Supreme  Judge  of  the  World  for 
the  rectitude  of  our  intentions,  do,  in  the  name  and  by  the 
authority  of  the  good  people  of  these  colonies,  solemnly  publish 


4  ORATIONS   AND   MEMORIAL  ADDRESSES 

and  declare  that  these  United  Colonies  are,  and  of  right  ought  to 
be,  free  and  independent  States." 

To  this  Declaration  John  Hancock,  proscribed  and  threatened 
with  death,  affixed  a  signature  which  has  stood  for  a  century  like 
the  pointers  to  the  North  Star  in  the  firmament  of  freedom,  and 
Charles  Carroll,  taunted  that,  among  many  Carrolls,  he,  the 
richest  man  in  America,  might  escape,  added  description  and 
identification  with  "of  Carrollton."  Benjamin  Harrison,  a  dele- 
gate from  Virginia,  the  ancestor  of  the  distinguished  statesman 
and  soldier  who  to-day  so  worthily  fills  the  chair  of  Washington, 
voiced  the  unalterable  determination  and  defiance  of  the  Congress. 
He  seized  John  Hancock,  upon  whose  head  a  price  was  set,  in  his 
arms,  and  placing  him  in  the  presidential  chair,  said:  "We  will 
show  Mother  Britain  how  little  we  care  for  her,  by  making  our 
President  a  Massachusetts  man  whom  she  has  excluded  from 
pardon  by  public  proclamation" ;  and  when  they  were  signing  the 
Declaration,  and  the  slender  Elbridge  Gerry  uttered  the  grim 
pleasantry,  "We  must  hang  together,  or  surely  we  will  hang 
separately,"  the  portly  Harrison  responded  with  the  more  daring 
humor,  "It  will  be  all  over  with  me  in  a  moment ;  but  you  will  be 
kicking  in  the  air  half  an  hour  after  I  am  gone."  Thus  flashed 
athwart  the  great  Charter,  which  was  to  be  for  its  signers  a  death- 
warrant  or  a  diploma  of  immortality,  as  with  firm  hand,  high 
purpose,  and  undaunted  resolution,  they  subscribed  their  names, 
this  mockery  of  fear  and  the  penalties  of  treason. 

The  grand  central  idea  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence 
was  the  sovereignty  of  the  People.  It  relied  for  original  power, 
not  upon  States  or  Colonies,  or  their  citizens  as  such,  but  recog- 
nized as  the  authority  for  nationality  the  revolutionary  rights  of 
the  people  of  the  United  States.  It  stated  with  marvelous  clear- 
ness the  encroachments  upon  liberties  which  threatened  their  sup- 
pression and  justified  revolt,  but  it  was  inspired  by  the  very  genius 
of  freedom  and  the  prophetic  possibilities  of  united  common- 
wealths covering  the  continent  in  one  harmonious  republic,  when 
it  made  the  people  of  the  thirteen  colonies  all  Americans,  and 
devolved  upon  them  to  administer  by  themselves  and  for  them- 
selves the  prerogatives  and  powers  wrested  from  Crown  and 
Parliament.  It  condensed  Magna  Charta,  the  Petition  of  Rights, 
the  great  body  of  English  liberties  embodied  in  the  common  law 
and  accumulated  in  the  decisions  of  the  courts,  the  statutes  of 


WASHINGTON'S  INAUGURATION  5 

the  realm,  and  an  undisputed  though  unwritten  Constitution ;  but 
this  original  principle  and  dynamic  force  of  the  people's  power 
sprang  from  these  old  seeds  planted  in  the  virgin  soil  of  the  New 
World. 

More  clearly  than  any  other  statesman  of  the  period  did 
Thomas  Jefferson  grasp  and  divine  the  possibilities  of  popular 
government.  He  caught  and  crystallized  the  spirit  of  free  insti- 
tutions. His  philosophical  mind  was  singularly  free  from  the 
power  of  precedents  or  the  chains  of  prejudice.  He  had  an 
unquestioning  and  abiding  faith  in  the  people,  which  was  accepted 
by  but  few  of  his  compatriots.  Upon  his  famous  axiom,  of  the 
equality  of  all  men  before  the  law,  he  constructed  his  system. 
It  was  the  trip-hammer  essential  for  the  emergency  to  break  the 
links  binding  the  colonies  to  imperial  authority,  and  to  pulverize 
the  privileges  of  caste.  It  inspired  him  to  write  the  Declaration 
of  Independence,  and  persuaded  him  to  doubt  the  wisdom  of  the 
powers  concentrated  in  the  Constitution.  In  his  passionate  love 
of  liberty  he  became  intensely  jealous  of  authority.  He  destroyed 
the  substance  of  royal  prerogative,  but  never  emerged  from  its 
shadow.  He  would  have  the  States  as  the  guardians  of  popular 
rights,  and  the  barriers  against  centralization,  and  he  saw  in  the 
growing  power  of  the  nation  ever-increasing  encroachments  upon 
the  rights  of  the  people.  For  the  success  of  the  pure  democracy 
which  must  precede  presidents  and  cabinets  and  congresses,  it  was 
perhaps  providential  that  its  apostle  never  believed  a  great  people 
could  grant  and  still  retain,  could  give  and  at  will  reclaim,  could 
delegate  and  yet  firmly  hold,  the  authority  which  ultimately 
created  the  power  of  their  Republic  and  enlarged  the  scope  of 
their  own  liberty. 

Where  this  master-mind  halted,  all  stood  still.  The  necessity 
for  a  permanent  union  was  apparent;  but  each  State  must  have 
hold  upon  the  bowstring  which  encircled  its  throat.  It  was 
admitted  that  union  gave  the  machinery  required  to  fight  success- 
fully the  common  enemy;  but  yet  there  was  fear  that  it  might 
become  a  Frankenstein2  and  destroy  its  creators.  Thus  patriotism 
and  fear,  difficulties  of  communication  between  distant  communi- 
ties, and  the  intense  growth  of  provincial  pride  and  interests,  led 

2The)  failure  of  Mrs.  Shelley  to  give  a  name  to  the  soulless  monster,  created  by  the 
student  Frankenstein  out  of  human  fragments  collected  from  graveyards  and  dissecting 
rooms,  has  led  to  this  misuse  of  Frankenstein's  name,  which  is  common  but  unjustifiable. — 
Ed. 


6  ORATIONS   AND   MEMORIAL   ADDRESSES 

this  Congress  to  frame  the  Articles  of  Confederation,  happily 
termed  the  League  of  Friendship.  The  result  was  not  a  govern- 
ment, but  a  ghost.  By  this  scheme  the  American  people  were 
ignored  and  the  Declaration  of  Independence  reversed.  The 
States,  by  their  legislatures,  elected  delegates  to  Congress,  and  the 
delegate  represented  the  sovereignty  of  his  commonwealth. 

All  the  States  had  an  equal  voice  without  regard  to  their  size 
or  population.  It  required  the  vote  of  nine  States  to  pass  any 
bill,  and  five  could  block  the  wheels  of  Government.  Congress 
had  none  of  the  powers  essential  to  sovereignty.  It  could  neither 
levy  taxes  nor  impose  duties  nor  collect  excise.  For  the  support 
of  the  army  and  navy,  for  the  purposes  of  war,  for  the  preserva- 
tion of  its  own  functions,  it  could  only  call  upon  the  States,  but 
it  possessed  no  power  to  enforce  its  demands.  It  had  no  president 
or  executive  authority,  no  supreme  court  with  general  jurisdic- 
tion, and  no  national  power.  Each  of  the  thirteen  States  had 
seaports  and  levied  discriminating  duties  against  the  others,  and 
could  also  tax  and  thus  prohibit  interstate  commerce  across  its 
territory.  Had  the  Confederation  been  a  Union  instead  of  a 
League,  it  could  have  raised  and  equipped  three  times  the  number 
of  men  contributed  by  reluctant  States,  and  conquered  independ- 
ence without  foreign  assistance.  This  paralyzed  Government — 
without  strength,  because  it  could  not  enforce  its  decrees ;  without 
credit,  because  it  could  pledge  nothing  for  the  payment  of  its 
debts;  without  respect,  because  without  inherent  authority  it 
would,  by  its  feeble  life  and  early  death,  have  added  another  to  the 
historic  tragedies  which  have  in  many  lands  marked  the  suppres- 
sion of  freedom,  had  it  not  been  saved  by  the  intelligent,  inherited, 
and  invincible  understanding  of  liberty  by  the  people,  and  the 
genius  and  patriotism  of  their  leaders. 

But  while  the  perils  of  war  had  given  temporary  strength  to 
the  Confederation,  peace  developed  its  fatal  weakness.  It  derived 
no  authority  from  the  people,  and  could  not  appeal  to  them. 
Anarchy  threatened  its  existence  at  home,  and  contempt  met  its 
representatives  abroad. 

"Can  you  fulfil  or  enforce  the  obligations  of  the  treaty  on 
your  part  if  we  sign  one  with  you?"  was  the  sneer  of  the  courts 
of  the  Old  World  to  our  ambassadors.  Some  States  gave  a 
half-hearted  support  to  its  demands ;  others  defied  them.  The  loss 
of  public  credit  was  speedily  followed  by  universal  bankruptcy. 


WASHINGTON'S   INAUGURATION  7 

The  wildest  phantasies  assumed  the  force  of  serious  measures  for 
the  relief  of  the  general  distress.  States  passed  exclusive  and 
hostile  laws  against  each  other,  and  riot  and  disorder  threatened 
the  disintegration  of  society.  "Our  stock  is  stolen,  our  houses 
are  plundered,  our  farms  are  raided,"  cried  a  delegate  in  the 
Massachusetts  convention;  "despotism  is  better  than  anarchy!" 
To  raise  four  millions  of  dollars  a  year  was  beyond  the  resources 
of  the  Government,  and  three  hundred  thousand  was  the  limit  of 
the  loan  it  could  secure  from  the  money-lenders  of  Europe.  Even 
Washington  exclaimed  in  despair:  "I  see  one  head  gradually 
changing  into  thirteen;  I  see  one  army  gradually  branching  into 
thirteen;  which,  instead  of  looking  up  to  Congress  as  the  supreme 
controlling  power,  are  considering  themselves  as  depending  on 
their  respective  States."  And  later,  when  independence  had  been 
won,  the  impotency  of  the  Government  wrung  from  him  the 
exclamation:  "After  gloriously  and  successfully  contending 
against  the  usurpation  of  Great  Britain,  we  may  fall  a  prey  to  our 
own  folly  and  disputes." 

But  even  through  this  Cimmerian  darkness  shot  a  flame  which 
illumined  the  coming  century,  and  kept  bright  the  beacon-fires  of 
liberty.  The  architects  of  constitutional  freedom  formed  their 
institutions  with  wisdom  which  forecasted  the  future.  They  may 
not  have  understood  at  first  the  whole  truth ;  but,  for  that  which 
they  knew,  they  had  the  martyrs'  spirit  and  the  crusaders'  enthu- 
siasm. Though  the  Confederation  was  a  government  of  checks 
without  balances,  and  of  purpose  without  power,  the  statesmen 
who  guided  it  demonstrated  often  the  resistless  force  of  great 
souls  animated  by  the  purest  patriotism;  and,  united  in  judg- 
ment and  effort  to  promote  the  common  good,  sought  by  lofty 
appeals  and  high  reasoning  to  elevate  the  masses  above  local 
greed  and  apparent  self-interest  to  their  own  broad  plane. 

The  most  significant  triumph  of  these  moral  and  intellectual 
forces  was  that  which  secured  the  assent  of  the  States  to  the  limi- 
tation of  their  boundaries,  to  the  grant  of  the  wilderness  beyond 
them  to  the  General  Government,  and  to  the  insertion  in  the  ordi- 
nance erecting  the  Northwest  Territory  of  the  immortal  proviso 
prohibiting  "slavery  or  involuntary  servitude"  within  all  that 
broad  domain.  The  States  carved  out  of  this  splendid  concession 
were  not  sovereignties  which  had  successfully  rebelled,  but  were 
the  children  of  the  Union,  born  of  the  covenant  and  thrilled  with 


8  ORATIONS   AND   MEMORIAL   ADDRESSES 

its  life  and  liberty.  They  became  the  bulwarks  of  nationality  and 
the  buttresses  of  freedom.  Their  preponderating  strength  first 
checked  and  then  broke  the  slave  power;  their  fervid  loyalty 
halted  and  held  at  bay  the  spirit  of  State  rights  and  secession 
for  generations ;  and  when  the  crisis  came,  it  was  with  their  over- 
whelming assistance  that  the  nation  killed  and  buried  its  enemy. 
The  corner-stone  of  the  edifice  whose  centenary  we  are  celebrat- 
ing was  the  Ordinance  of  1 787.  It  was  constructed  by  the  feeblest 
of  congresses,  but  few  enactments  of  ancient  or  modern  times 
have  had  more  far-reaching  and  beneficent  influence.  It  is  one  of 
the  sublimest  paradoxes  of  history,  that  this  weak  Confederation 
of  States  should  have  wedded  the  chain  against  which,  after  sev- 
enty-four years  of  fretful  efforts  for  release,  its  own  spirit  franti- 
cally dashed  and  died. 

The  government  of  the  Republic  by  a  Congress  of  States,  a 
diplomatic  convention  of  the  ambassadors  of  petty  common- 
wealths, after  seven  years'  trial,  was  falling  asunder.  Threatened 
with  civil  war  among  its  members,  insurrection  and  lawlessness 
rife  within  the  States,  foreign  commerce  ruined  and  internal  trade 
paralyzed,  its  currency  worthless,  its  merchants  bankrupt,  its 
farms  mortgaged,  its  markets  closed,  its  labor  unemployed,  it  was 
like  a  helpless  wreck  upon  the  ocean,  tossed  about  by  the  tides  and 
ready  to  be  engulfed  in  the  storm.  Washington  gave  the  warning 
and  called  for  action.  It  was  a  voice  accustomed  to  command,  but 
not  to  entreat.  The  veterans  of  the  war  and  the  statesmen  of  the 
Revolution  stepped  to  the  front.  The  patriotism  which  had  been 
misled,  but  had  never  faltered,  rose  above  the  interests  of  the 
States  and  the  jealousies  of  jarring  confederates  to  find  the  basis 
for  union.  "It  is  clear  to  me  as  A  B  C,"  said  Washington, 
"that  an  extension  of  federal  powers  would  make  us  one  of  the 
most  happy,  wealthy,  respectable,  and  powerful  nations  that  ever 
inhabited  the  terrestrial  globe.  Without  them  we  shall  soon  be 
everything  which  is  the  direct  reverse.  I  predict  the  worst  conse- 
quences from  a  half -starved,  limping  government,  always  moving 
upon  crutches  and  tottering  at  every  step."  The  response  of  the 
country  was  the  Convention  of  1787,  at  Philadelphia.  The  Decla- 
ration of  Independence  was  but  the  vestibule  of  the  temple  which 
this  illustrious  assembly  erected.  With  no  successful  precedents 
to  guide,  it  auspiciously  worked  out  the  problem  of  constitutional 
government,  and  of  imperial  power  and  home  rule  supplementing 


WASHINGTON'S  INAUGURATION  9 

each  other  in  promoting  the  grandeur  of  the  nation  and  preserving 
the  liberty  of  the  individual. 

The  deliberations  of  great  councils  have  vitally  affected,  at 
different  periods,  the  history  of  the  world  and  the  fate  of  empires ; 
but  this  Congress  builded,  upon  popular  sovereignty,  institutions 
broad  enough  to  embrace  the  continent,  and  elastic  enough  to  fit 
all  conditions  of  race  and  traditions.  The  -experience  of  a  hundred 
years  has  demonstrated  for  us  the  perfection  of  the  work  for  de- 
fense against  foreign  foes,  and  for  self-preservation  against  do- 
mestic insurrection,  for  limitless  expansion  in  population  and  ma- 
terial development,  and  for  steady  growth  in  intellectual  freedom 
and  force.  Its  continuing  influence  upon  the  welfare  and  destiny 
of  the  human  race  can  be  measured  only  by  the  capacity  of  man 
to  cultivate  and  enjoy  the  boundless  opportunities  of  liberty  and 
law.  The  eloquent  characterization  of  Mr.  Gladstone  condenses 
its  merits:  "The  American  Constitution  is  the  most  wonderful 
work  ever  struck  off  at  a  given  time  by  the  brain  and  purpose  of 
man." 

The  statesmen  who  composed  this  great  senate  were  equal 
to  their  trust.  Their  conclusions  were  the  result  of  calm  debate 
and  wise  concession.  Their  character  and  abilities  were  so  pure 
and  great  as  to  command  the  confidence  of  the  country  for  the 
reversal  of  the  policy  of  the  independence  of  the  State  of  the 
power  of  the  General  Government,  which  had  hitherto  been  the 
invariable  practice  and  almost  universal  opinion,  and  for  the  adop- 
tion of  the  idea  of  the  nation  and  its  supremacy. 

Towering  in  majesty  and  influence  above  them  all  stood 
Washington,  their  President.  Beside  him  was  the  venerable 
Franklin,  who,  though  eighty-one  years  of  age,  brought  to  the 
deliberations  of  the  Convention  the  unimpaired  vigor  and  re- 
sources of  the  wisest  brain,  the  most  hopeful  philosophy,  and 
the  largest  experience  of  the  times.  Oliver  Ellsworth,  after- 
ward Chief-Justice  of  the  United  States,  and  the  profoundest 
jurist  in  the  country;  Robert  Morris,  the  wonderful  financier  of 
the  Revolution,  and  Gouverneur  Morris,  the  most  versatile  gen- 
ius of  his  period;  Roger  Sherman,  one  of  the  most  eminent  of 
the  signers  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  and  John  Rut- 
ledge,  Rufus  King,  Elbridge  Gerry,  Edmund  Randolph,  and  the 
Pinckneys,  were  leaders  of  unequaled  patriotism,  courage,  abil- 
ity, and  learning ;  while  Alexander  Hamilton  and  James  Madison, 


10  ORATIONS   AND    MEMORIAL   ADDRESSES 

as  original  thinkers  and  constructive  statesmen,  rank  among  the 
immortal  few  whose  opinions  have  for  ages  guided  ministers 
of  state  and  determined  the  destinies  of  nations. 

This  great  Convention  keenly  felt,  and  with  devout  and  se- 
rene intelligence  met,  its  tremendous  responsibilities.  It  had  the 
moral  support  of  the  few  whose  aspirations  for  liberty  had  been 
inspired  or  renewed  by  the  triumph  of  the  American  Revolution, 
and  the  active  hostility  of  every  government  in  the  world. 

There  were  no  examples  to  follow,  and  the  experience  of  its 
members  led  part  of  them  to  lean  toward  absolute  centralization 
as  the  only  refuge  from  the  anarchy  of  the  Confederation,  while 
the  rest  clung  to  the  sovereignty  of  the  States,  for  fear  that  the 
concentration  of  power  would  end  in  the  absorption  of  liberty. 
The  large  States  did  not  want  to  surrender  the  advantage  of  their 
position,  and  the  smaller  States  saw  the  danger  to  their  existence. 
The  Leagues  of  the  Greek  cities  had  ended  in  loss  of  freedom, 
tyranny,  conquest,  and  destruction.  Roman  conquest  and  as- 
similation had  strewn  the  shores  of  time  with  the  wrecks  of  em- 
pires, and  plunged  civilization  into  the  perils  and  horrors  of  the 
Dark  Ages.  The  government  of  Cromwell  was  the  isolated  pow- 
er of  the  mightiest  man  of  his  age,  without  popular  authority  to 
fill  his  place  or  the  hereditary  principle  to  protect  his  successor. 

The  past  furnished  no  light  for  our  state-builders;  the  pres- 
ent was  full  of  doubt  and  despair.  The  future,  the  experiment 
of  self-government,  the  perpetuity  and  development  of  freedom, 
almost  the  destiny  of  mankind,  was  in  their  hands. 

At  this  crisis  the  courage  and  confidence  needed  to  originate 
a  system  weakened.  The  temporizing  spirit  of  compromise 
seized  the  Convention,  with  the  alluring  proposition  of  not  pn> 
ceeding  faster  than  the  people  could  be  educated  to  follow.  The 
cry,  "Let  us  not  waste  our  labor  upon  conclusions  which  will  not 
be  adopted,  but  amend  and  adjourn,"  was  assuming  startling 
unanimity.  But  the  supreme  force  and  majestic  sense  of  Wash- 
ington brought  the  assemblage  to  the  lofty  plane  of  its  duty  and 
opportunity.  He  said :  "It  is  too  probable  that  no  plan  we  pro- 
pose will  be  adopted.  Perhaps  another  dreadful  conflict  is  to  be 
sustained.  If  to  please  the  people  we  offer  what  we  ourselves 
disapprove,  how  can  we  afterward  defend  our  work?  Let  us 
raise  a  standard  to  which  the  wise  and  honest  can  repair;  the 
event  is  in  the  hands  of  God."     "I  am  the  State,"  said  Louis 


WASHINGTON'S  INAUGURATION  11 

XIV.,  but  his  line  ended  in  the  grave  of  absolutism.  "Forty  cen- 
turies look  down  upon  you,"  was  Napoleon's  address  to  his  army, 
in  the  shadow  of  the  Pyramids;  but  his  soldiers  saw  the  dream 
of  Eastern  Empire  vanish  in  blood.  Statesmen  and  parliamen- 
tary leaders  have  sunk  into  oblivion,  or  led  their  party  to  defeat, 
by  surrendering  their  convictions  to  the  passing  passions  of  the 
hour;  but  Washington,  in  this  immortal  speech,  struck  the  key- 
note of  representative  obligation,  and  propounded  the  funda- 
mental principle  of  the  purity  and  perpetuity  of  constitutional 
government. 

Freed  from  the  limitations  of  its  environment,  and  the  ques- 
tion of  the  adoption  of  its  work,  the  Convention  erected  its  gov- 
ernment upon  the  eternal  foundations  of  the  power  of  the  people. 
It  dismissed  the  delusive  theory  of  a  compact  between  inde- 
pendent States,  and  derived  national  power  from  the  people  of 
the  United  States.  It  broke  up  the  machinery  of  the  Confedera- 
tion, and  put  in  practical  operation  the  glittering  generalities  of 
the  Declaration  of  Independence.  From  chaos  came  order,  from 
insecurity  came  safety,  from  disintegration  and  civil  war  came 
law  and  liberty,  with  the  principle  proclaimed  in  the  preamble 
of  the  great  charter :  "We,  the  people  of  the  United  States,  in 
order  to  form  a  more  perfect  union,  establish  justice,  insure  do- 
mestic tranquillity,  provide  for  the  common  defense,  promote 
the  general  welfare,  and  secure  the  blessings  of  liberty  to  our- 
selves and  our  posterity,  do  ordain  and  establish  this  Constitution 
for  the  United  States."  With  a  wisdom  inspired  by  God,  to  work 
out  upon  this  continent  the  liberty  of  man,  they  solved  the  prob- 
lem of  the  ages  by  blending,  and  yet  preserving,  local  self-gov- 
ernment with  national  authority,  and  the  rights  of  the  States 
with  the  majesty  and  power  of  the  Republic.  The  government 
of  the  States,  under  the  Articles  of  the  Confederation,  became 
bankrupt  because  it  could  not  raise  four  millions  of  dollars;  the 
government  of  the  Union,  under  the  Constitution  of  the  United 
States,  raised  six  thousand  millions  of  dollars,  its  credit  growing 
firmer  as  its  power  and  resources  were  demonstrated.  The  Con- 
gress of  the  Confederation  fled  from  a  regiment,  which  it  could 
not  pay ;  the  Congress  of  the  Union  reviewed  the  comrades  of  a 
million  of  its  victorious  soldiers,  saluting  as  they  marched  the 
flag  of  the  nation  whose  supremacy  they  had  sustained.     The 


12  ORATIONS   AND   MEMORIAL   ADDRESSES 

promises  of  the  Confederacy  were  the  scoff  of  its  States;  the 
pledge  of  the  Republic  was  the  honor  of  its  people. 

The  Constitution,  which  was  to  be  strengthened  by  the  strain 
of  a  century,  to  be  a  mighty  conqueror  without  a  subject  prov- 
ince, to  survive  triumphantly  the  greatest  of  civil  wars  without 
the  confiscation  of  an  estate  or  the  execution  of  a  political  of- 
fender, to  create  and  grant  home  rule  and  State  sovereignty  to 
twenty-nine  additional  commonwealths,  and  yet  enlarge  its  scope 
and  broaden  its  power,  and  to  make  the  name  of  an  American 
citizen  a  title  of  honor  throughout  the  world,  came  complete  from 
the  great  Convention  to  the  people  for  adoption.  As  Hancock 
rose  from  his  seat  in  the  old  Congress,  eleven  years  before,  to 
sign  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  Franklin  saw  emblazoned 
on  the  back  of  the  President's  chair  the  sun  partly  above  the  ho- 
rizon, but  it  seemed  setting  in  a  blood-red  sky.  During  the  seven 
years  of  the  Confederation  he  had  gathered  no  hope  from  the 
glittering  emblem,  but  now  as  with  clear  vision  he  beheld  fixed 
upon  eternal  foundations  the  enduring  structure  of  constitutional 
liberty,  pointing  to  the  sign,  he  forgot  his  eighty-two  years,  and, 
with  the  enthusiasm  of  youth,  electrified  the  Convention  with 
the  declaration :     "Now  I  know  that  it  is  the  rising  sun." 

The  pride  of  the  States  and  the  ambition  of  their  leaders, 
sectional  jealousies  and  the  overwhelming  distrust  of  centralized 
power,  were  all  arrayed  against  the  adoption  of  the  Constitution. 
North  Carolina  and  Rhode  Island  refused  to  join  the  Union  until 
long  after  Washington's  inauguration.  For  months  New  York 
was  debatable  ground.  Her  territory,  extending  from  the  sea 
to  the  lakes,  made  her  the  keystone  of  the  arch.  Had  Arnold's 
treason  in  the  Revolution  not  been  foiled  by  the  capture  of  An- 
dre, England  would  have  held  New  York  and  subjugated  the 
colonies;  and  in  this  crisis,  unless  New  York  assented,  a  hostile 
and  powerful  commonwealth  dividing  the  States  would  have 
made  the  Union  impossible. 

Success  was  due  to  confidence  in  Washington  and  the  genius 
of  Alexander  Hamilton.  Jefferson  was  the  inspiration  of  Inde- 
pendence, but  Hamilton  was  the  incarnation  of  the  Constitution. 
In  no  age  or  country  has  there  appeared  a  more  precocious  or 
amazing  intelligence  than  Hamilton's.  At  seventeen  he  annihi- 
lated the  President  of  his  college,  upon  the  question  of  rights  of 
the  colonies,  in  a  series  of  anonymous  articles  which  were  credi- 


WASHINGTON'S  INAUGURATION  13 

ted  to  the  ablest  men  in  the  country;  at  forty-seven,  when  he 
died,  his  briefs  had  become  the  law  of  the  land,  and  his  fiscal 
system  was,  and  after  a  hundred  years  remains,  the  rule  and 
policy  of  our  Government.  He  gave  life  to  the  corpse  of  national 
credit,  and  the  strength  for  self-preservation  and  aggressive 
power  to  the  Federal  Union.  Both  as  an  expounder  of  the  prin- 
ciples and  an  administrator  of  the  affairs  of  the  Government  he 
stands  supreme  and  unrivaled  in  American  history.  His  elo- 
quence was  so  magnetic,  his  language  so  clear,  and  his  reasoning 
so  irresistible,  that  he  swayed  with  equal  ease  popular  assemblies, 
grave  senates,  and  learned  judges.  He  captured  the  people  of 
the  whole  country  for  the  Constitution  by  his  papers  in  The  Fed- 
eralist, and  conquered  the  hostile  majority  in  the  New  York  Con- 
vention by  the  splendor  of  his  oratory. 

But  the  multitudes  whom  no  argument  could  convince,  who 
saw  in  the  executive  power  and  centralized  force  of  the  Consti- 
tution, under  another  name,  the  dreaded  usurpation  of  king  and 
ministry,  were  satisfied  only  with  the  assurance,  "Washington 
will  be  President."  "Good,"  cried  John  Lamb,  the  able  leader 
of  the  Sons  of  Liberty,  as  he  dropped  his  opposition;  "for  to  no 
other  mortal  would  I  trust  authority  so  enormous."  "Wash- 
ington will  be  President,"  was  the  battle-cry  of  the  Constitution. 
It  quieted  alarm,  and  gave  confidence  to  the  timid  and  courage 
to  the  weak. 

The  country  responded  with  enthusiastic  unanimity,  but  the 
Chief  with  the  greatest  reluctance.  In  the  supreme  moment  of 
victory,  when  the  world  expected  him  to  follow  the  precedents 
of  the  past,  and  perpetuate  the  power  a  grateful  country  would 
willingly  have  left  in  his  hands,  he  had  resigned  and  retired  to 
Mount  Vernon  to  enjoy  in  private  station  his  well-earned  rest. 
The  Convention  created  by  his  exertions  to  prevent,  as  he  said, 
"the  decline  of  our  federal  dignity  into  insignificant  and  wretched 
fragments  of  empire,"  had  called  him  to  preside  over  its  delib- 
erations. Its  work  made  possible  the  realization  of  his  hope  that 
"we  might  survive  as  an  independent  republic,"  and  again  he 
sought  the  seclusion  of  his  home.  But  after  the  triumph  of  war, 
and  the  formation  of  the  Constitution,  came  the  third  and  final 
crisis ;  the  initial  movements  of  government  which  were  to  teach 
the  infant  state  the  steadier  steps  of  empire. 

He  alone  could  stay  assault  and  inspire  confidence  while  the 


14  ORATIONS   AND   MEMORIAL   ADDRESSES 

great  and  complicated  machinery  of  organized  government  was 
put  in  order  and  set  in  motion.  Doubt  existed  nowhere  except 
in  his  modest  and  unambitious  heart.  "My  movements  to  the 
chair  of  government,"  he  said,  "will  be  accompanied  with  feel- 
ings not  unlike  those  of  a  culprit  who  is  going  to  the  place  of  his 
execution.  So  unwilling  am  I,  in  the  evening  of  life,  nearly 
consumed  in  public  cares,  to  quit  a  peaceful  abode  for  an  ocean 
of  difficulties,  without  that  competency  of  political  skill,  abilities, 
and  inclination,  which  are  necessary  to  manage  the  helm."  His 
whole  life  had  been  spent  in  repeated  sacrifices  for  his  country's 
welfare,  and  he  did  not  hesitate  now,  though  there  is  an  under- 
tone of  inexpressible  sadness  in  this  entry  in  his  diary  on  the 
night  of  his  departure : 

"About  ten  o'clock  I  bade  adieu  to  Mount  Vernon,  to  pri- 
vate life,  and  to  domestic  felicity,  and  with  a  mind  oppressed 
with  more  anxious  and  painful  sensations  than  I  have  words  to 
express,  set  out  for  New  York  with  the  best  disposition  to  ren- 
der service  to  my  country  in  obedience  to  its  call,  but  with  less 
hope  of  answering  its  expectations." 

No  conqueror  was  ever  accorded  such  a  triumph,  no  ruler 
ever  received  such  a  welcome.  In  this  memorable  march  of  six 
days  to  the  Capitol,  it  was  the  pride  of  States  to  accompany  him 
with  the  masses  of  their  people  to  their  borders,  that  the  citizens 
of  the  next  commonwealth  might  escort  him  through  its  territory. 
It  was  the  glory  of  cities  to  receive  him  with  every  civic  honor 
at  their  gates,  and  entertain  him  as  the  saviour  of  their  liberties. 
He  rode  under  triumphal  arches  from  which  children  lowered 
laurel  wreaths  upon  his  brow.  The  roadways  were  strewn  with 
flowers,  and  as  they  were  crushed  beneath  his  horse's  hoofs,  their 
sweet  incense  wafted  to  Heaven  the  ever-ascending  prayers  of  his 
loving  countrymen  for  his  life  and  safety.  The  swelling  anthem 
of  gratitude  and  reverence  greeted  and  followed  him  along  the 
country-side  and  through  the  crowded  streets:  "Long  live 
George  Washington !    Long  live  the  Father  of  his  People !" 

His  entry  into  New  York  was  worthy  the  city  and  State.  He 
was  met  by  the  chief  officers  of  the  retiring  Government  of  the 
country,  by  the  Governor  of  the  commonwealth,  and  the  whole 
population.  This  superb  harbor  was  alive  with  fleets  and  flags ; 
and  the  ships  of  other  nations,  with  salutes  from  their  guns,  and 
the  cheers  of  their  crews,  added  to  the  joyous  acclaim.     But  as 


WASHINGTON'S  INAUGURATION  15 

the  captains,  who  had  asked  the  privilege  of  rowing  the  Presi- 
dent's barge,  bent  proudly  to  their  oars  as  they  passed  swiftly 
through  these  inspiring  scenes,  Washington's  mind  and  heart 
were  full  of  reminiscence  and  foreboding.  He  had  visited  New 
York  thirty-three  years  before,  also  in  the  month  of  April,  in  the 
full  perfection  of  his  early  manhood,  fresh  from  Braddock's 
bloody  field,  and  wearing  the  only  laurels  of  the  battle,  bearing 
the  prophetic  blessing  of  the  venerable  President  Davies,  of 
Princeton  College,  as  "That  heroic  youth,  Colonel  Washington, 
whom  I  cannot  but  hope  Providence  has  hitherto  preserved  in 
so  signal  a  manner  for  some  important  service  to  the  country." 
It  was  a  fair  daughter  of  our  State,3  whose  smiles  allured  him 
here,  and  whose  coy  confession  that  her  heart  was  another's  re- 
corded his  only  failure  and  saddened  his  departure. 

Twenty  years  later  he  stood  before  the  New  York  Con- 
gress, on  this  very  spot,  the  chosen  Commander-in-Chief  of 
the  Continental  Army,  urging  the  people  to  more  vigorous  meas- 
ures, and  made  painfully  aware  of  the  increased  desperation  of 
the  struggle  from  the  aid  to  be  given  to  the  enemy  by  domestic 
sympathizers,  when  he  knew  that  the  same  local  military  com- 
pany which  escorted  him  was  to  perform  the  like  service  for  the 
British  Governor  Tryon  on  his  landing  on  the  morrow.  Return- 
ing for  the  defense  of  the  city  the  next  summer,  he  executed  the 
retreat  from  Long  Island,  which  secured  from  Frederick  the 
Great  the  opinion  that  a  great  commander  had  appeared,  and  at 
Harlem  Heights  won  the  first  American  victory  of  the  Revo- 
lution, which  gave  that  confidence  to  our  raw  recruits  against 
the  famous  veterans  of  Europe  that  carried  our  army  triumph- 
antly through  the  war.  Six  years  more  of  untold  sufferings,  of 
freezing  and  starving  camps,  of  marches  over  the  snow  by  bare- 
footed soldiers  to  heroic  attack  and  splendid  victory,  of  despair 
with  an  unpaid  army,  and  of  hope  from  the  generous  assistance 
of  France,  and  peace  had  come  and  Independence  triumphed.  As 
the  last  soldier  of  the  invading  enemy  embarks,  Washington  at 
the  head  of  the  patriot  host  enters  the  city,  receives  the  welcome 
and  gratitude  of  its  people,  and  in  the  tavern  which  faces  us 
across  the  way,  in  silence  more  eloquent  than  speech,  and  with 

3Mary  Philipse,  daughter  of  Frederick  Philipse,  who  married  in  1758,  Major  Roger 
Morris.  He  built  for  her  the  house  now  called  the  Jumel  Mansion,  which  was  Washing- 
ton's headquarters  in  1776.  As  the  Morrises  were  loyalists  their  property  was  confiscated 
and  thev  returned  to  England. — Ed. 


16  ORATIONS   AND   MEMORIAL   ADDRESSES 

tears  which  choke  the  words,  he  bids  farewell  forever  to  his  com- 
panions in  arms.  Such  were  the  crowding  memories  of  the  past 
suggested  to  Washington  in  1789  by  his  approach  to  New  York. 
But  the  future  had  none  of  the  splendor  of  precedent  and  bril- 
liance of  promise  which  have  since  attended  the  inauguration  of 
our  Presidents.  An  untried  scheme,  adopted  mainly  because  its 
administration  was  to  be  confided  to  him,  was  to  be  put  in  prac- 
tice. He  knew  that  he  was  to  be  met  at  every  step  of  constitu- 
tional progress  by  factions  temporarily  hushed  into  unanimity  by. 
the  terrific  force  of  the  tidal  wave  which  was  bearing  him  to  the 
President's  seat,  but  fiercely  hostile  upon  questions  affecting  every 
power  of  nationality  and  the  existence  of  the  Federal  Govern- 
ment. 

Washington  was  never  dramatic,  but  on  great  occasions  he 
not  only  rose  to  the  full  ideal  of  the  event,  he  became  himself  the 
event.  One  hundred  years  ago  to-day  the  procession  of  foreign 
ambassadors,  of  statesmen  and  generals,  of  civic  societies  and 
military  companies,  which  escorted  him,  marched  from  Franklin 
Square  to  Pearl  Street,  through  Pearl  to  Broad  to  this  spot; 
but  the  people  saw  only  Washington.  As  he  stood  upon  the  steps 
of  the  old  Government  Building  here,  the  thought  must  have 
occurred  to  him  that  it  was  a  cradle  of  liberty,  and  as  such  giving 
a  bright  omen  for  the  future. 

In  these  halls,  in  1735,  in  the  trial  of  John  Zenger,  had  been 
established,  for  the  first  time  in  its  history,  the  liberty  of  the 
press.  Here  the  New  York  Assembly,  in  1764,  made  the  protest 
against  the  Stamp  Act,  and  proposed  the  General  Conference, 
which  was  the  beginning  of  the  united  colonial  action.  In  this 
old  State  House,  in  1765,  the  Stamp  Act  Congress — the  first  and 
the  father  of  American  congresses — assembled  and  presented  to 
the  English  Government  that  vigorous  protest  which  caused  the 
repeal  of  the  Act,  and  checked  the  first  step  toward  the  usurpa- 
tion which  lost  the  American  Colonies  to  the  British  Empire. 
Within  these  walls  the  Congress  of  the  Confederation  had  com- 
missioned its  ambassadors  abroad,  and  in  ineffectual  efforts  at 
government  had  created  the  necessity  for  the  concentration  of 
federal  authority,  now  to  be  consummated. 

The  first  Congress  of  the  United  States,  gathered  in  this  an- 
cient temple  of  liberty,  greeted  Washington  and  accompanied 
him  to  the  balcony.     The  famous  men  visible  about  him  were 


WASHINGTON'S  INAUGURATION  17 

Chancellor  Livingston,  Vice-President  John  Adams,  Alexander 
Hamilton,  Governor  Clinton,  Roger  Sherman,  Richard  Henry 
Lee,  General  Knox,  and  Baron  Steuben.  But  we  believe  that 
among  the  invisible  host  above  him  at  this  supreme  moment  of 
the  culmination  in  permanent  triumph  of  the  thousands  of  years 
of  struggle  for  self-government,  were  the  spirits  of  soldiers  of 
the  Revolution  who  had  died  that  their  countrymen  might  enjoy 
this  blessed  day,  and  with  them  were  the  Barons  of  Runnymede, 
and  William  the  Silent,  and  Sidney,  and  Russell,  and  Cromwell, 
and  Hampden,  and  the  heroes  and  martyrs  of  liberty  of  every 
race  and  age. 

As  he  came  forward,  the  multitude  in  the  streets,  in  the  win- 
dows, and  on  the  roofs  sent  up  such  a  rapturous  shout  that  Wash- 
ington sat  down  overcome  with  emotion.  As  he  slowly  rose,  and 
his  tall  and  majestic  form  again  appeared,  the  people,  deeply  af- 
fected, in  awed  silence  viewed  the  scene.  The  Chancellor  sol- 
emnly read  to  him  the  oath  of  office,  and  Washington,  repeat- 
ing, said:  "I  do  solemnly  swear  that  I  will  faithfully  execute 
the  office  of  President  of  the  United  States,  and  will,  to  the  best 
of  my  ability,  preserve,  protect,  and  defend  the  Constitution  of 
the  United  States."  Then  he  reverently  bent  low  and  kissed  the 
Bible,  uttering  with  profound  emotion,  "So  help  me,  God/'  The 
Chancellor  waved  his  robes  and  shouted:  "It  is  done.  Long 
live  George  Washington,  President  of  the  United  States !"  "Long 
live  George  Washington,  our  first  President!"  was  the  answer- 
ing cheer  of  the  people,  and  from  the  belfries  rang  the  bells,  and 
from  forts  and  ships  thundered  the  cannon,  echoing  and  re- 
peating the  cry  with  responding  acclaim  all  over  the  land :  "Long 
live  George  Washington,  President  of  the  United  States!" 

The  simple  and  imposing  ceremony  over,  the  inaugural  read, 
the  blessing  of  God  prayerfully  petitioned  in  old  St.  Paul's,  the 
festivities  passed:  and  Washington  stood  alone.  No  one  else 
could  take  the  helm  of  State,  and  enthusiast  and  doubter  alike 
trusted  only  him.  The  teachings  and  habits  of  the  past  had  edu- 
cated the  people  to  faith  in  the  independence  of  their  States ;  and 
for  the  supreme  authority  of  the  new  Government  there  stood, 
against  the  precedent  of  a  century  and  the  passions  of  the  hour, 
little  besides  the  arguments  of  Hamilton,  Madison,  and  Jay  in 
The  Federalist,  and  the  judgment  of  Washington. 

With  the  first  attempt  to  exercise  national  power  began  the 
Vol.  1—2 


,.         OF   THE 

UWfVERSfTY 
or 


18  ORATIONS   AND   MEMORIAL   ADDRESSES 

duel  to  the  death  between  State  Sovereignty,  claiming  the 
right  to  nullify  federal  laws  or  secede  from  the  Union,  and  the 
power  of  the  Republic  to  command  the  resources  of  the  country, 
to  enforce  its  authority,  and  protect  its  life.  It  was  the  beginning 
of  the  sixty  years'  war  for  the  Constitution  and  the  Nation.  It 
seared  consciences,  degraded  politics,  destroyed  parties,  ruined 
statesmen,  and  retarded  the  advance  and  development  of  the 
country;  it  sacrificed  hundreds  of  thousands  of  precious  lives, 
and  squandered  thousands  of  millions  of  money ;  it  desolated  the 
fairest  portion  of  the  land  and  carried  mourning  into  every  home 
North  and  South;  but  it  ended  at  Appomattox  in  the  absolute 
triumph  of  the  Republic. 

Posterity  owes  to  Washington's  Administration  the  policy 
and  measures,  the  force  and  direction  which  made  possible  this 
glorious  result.  In  giving  the  organization  of  the  Department  of 
State  and  Foreign  Relations  to  Jefferson,  the  Treasury  to  Hamil- 
ton, and  the  Supreme  Court  to  Jay,  he  selected  for  his  Cabinet 
and  called  to  his  assistance  the  ablest  and  most  eminent  men  of 
his  time.  Hamilton's  marvelous  versatility  and  genius  designed 
the  armory  and  the  weapons  for  the  promotion  of  national  power 
and  greatness,  but  Washington's  steady  support  carried  them 
through.  Parties  crystallized,  and  party  passions  were  intense, 
debates  were  intemperate,  and  the  Union  openly  threatened  and 
secretly  plotted  against,  as  the  firm  pressure  of  this  mighty  per- 
sonality funded  the  debt  and  established  credit;  assumed  the 
State  debts  incurred  in  the  War  of  the  Revolution,  and  super- 
seded the  local  by  the  national  obligation;  imposed  duties  upon 
imports  and  excise  upon  spirits,  and  created  revenue  and  re- 
sources; organized  a  National  Banking  System  for  public  needs 
and  private  business,  and  called  out  an  army  to  put  down  by  force 
of  arms  resistance  to  the  federal  laws  imposing  unpopular  taxes. 
Upon  the  plan  marked  out  by  the  Constitution,  this  great  archi- 
tect, with  unfailing  faith  and  unfaltering  courage,  builded  the 
Republic.  He  gave  to  the  Government  the  principles  of  action 
and  sources  of  power  which  carried  it  successfully  through  the 
wars  with  Great  Britain  in  1812  and  Mexico  in  1848,  which  en- 
abled Jackson  to  defeat  nullification,  and  recruited  and  equipped 
millions  of  men  for  Lincoln,  and  justified  and  sustained  his  Proc- 
lamation of  Emancipation. 

The  French  Revolution  was  the  bloody  reality  of  France  and 


WASHINGTON'S  INAUGURATION  19 

the  nightmare  of  the  civilized  world.  The  tyranny  of  centuries 
culminated  in  frightful  reprisals  and  reckless  revenges.  As  par- 
ties rose  to  power  and  passed  to  the  guillotine,  the  frenzy  of  the 
revolt  against  all  authority  reached  every  country  and  captured 
the  imaginations  and  enthusiasm  of  millions  in  every  land,  who 
believed  they  saw  that  the  madness  of  anarchy,  the  overturning 
of  all  institutions,  the  confiscation  and  distribution  of  property, 
would  end  in  a  millennium  for  the  masses  and  the  universal 
brotherhood  of  man.  Enthusiasm  for  France,  our  late  ally,  and 
the  terrible  commercial  and  industrial  distress  occasioned  by  the 
failure  of  the  Government  under  the  Articles  of  Confederation, 
aroused  an  almost  unanimous  cry  for  the  young  Republic,  not 
yet  sure  of  its  existence,  to  plunge  into  the  vortex.  The  ablest 
and  purest  statesmen  of  the  time  bent  to  the  storm,  but  Washing- 
ton was  unmoved.  He  stood  like  the  rock-ribbed  coast  of  a  con- 
tinent between  the  surging  billows  of  fanaticism  and  the  child 
of  his  love.  Order  is  Heaven's  first  law,  and  the  mind  of  Wash- 
ington was  order.  The  Revolution  defied  God  and  derided  the 
law.  Washington  devoutly  reverenced  the  Deity,  and  believed 
liberty  impossible  without  law.  He  spoke  to  the  sober  judgment 
of  the  nation  and  made  clear  the  danger.  He  saved  the  infant 
Government  from  ruin,  and  expelled  the  French  Minister  who 
had  appealed  from  him  to  the  people.  The  whole  land,  seeing 
safety  only  in  his  continuance  in  office,  joined  Jefferson  in  urging 
him  to  accept  a  second  term.  "North  and  South,"  pleaded  the 
Secretary,  "will  hang  together  while  they  have  you  to  hang  to." 
No  man  ever  stood  for  so  much  to  his  country  and  to  man- 
kind as  George  Washington.  Hamilton,  Jefferson,  Adams,  Mad- 
ison and  Jay,  each  represented  some  of  the  elements  which  formed 
the  Union:  Washington  embodied  them  all.  They  fell  at 
times  under  popular  disapproval,  were  burned  in  effigy,  were 
stoned;  but  he  with  unerring  judgment  was  always  the  leader 
of  the  people.  Milton  said  of  Cromwell,  that  "war  made  him 
great,  peace  greater."  The  superiority  of  Washington's  char- 
acter and  genius  was  more  conspicuous  in  the  formation  of  our 
Government  and  in  putting  it  on  indestructible  foundations,  than 
in  leading  armies  to  victory  and  conquering  the  independence  of 
his  country.  "The  Union  in  any  event,"  is  the  central  thought 
of  his  Farewell  Address;  and  all  the  years  of  his  grand  life  were 
devoted  to  its  formation  and  preservation.    He  fought  as  a  youth 


20  ORATIONS   AND   MEMORIAL   ADDRESSES 

with  Braddock  and  in  the  capture  of  Fort  Du  Quesne  for  the 
protection  of  the  whole  country.  As  Commander-in-Chief  of  the 
Continental  Army,  his  commission  was  from  the  Congress  of 
the  United  Colonies.  He  inspired  the  movement  for  the  Republic, 
was  the  President  and  dominant  spirit  of  the  Convention  which 
framed  its  Constitution,  and  its  President  for  eight  years,  and 
guided  its  course  until  satisfied  that,  moving  safely  along  the 
broad  highway  of  time,  it  would  be  surely  ascending  toward  the 
first  place  among  the  nations  of  the  world,  the  asylum  of  the  op- 
pressed, the  home  of  the  free. 

Do  his  countrymen  exaggerate  his  virtues?  Listen  to  Guizot, 
the  historian  of  civilization :  "Washington  did  the  two  greatest 
things  which  in  politics  it  is  permitted  to  man  to  attempt.  He 
maintained  by  peace  the  independence  of  his  country  which  he 
conquered  by  war.  He  founded  a  free  government  in  the  name 
of  the  principles  of  order  and  by  re-establishing  their  sway." 
Hear  Lord  Erskine,  the  most  famous  of  English  advocates :  "You 
are  the  only  being  for  whom  I  have  an  awful  reverence.',  Re- 
member the  tribute  of  Charles  James  Fox,  the  greatest  parlia- 
mentary orator  who  ever  swayed  the  British  House  of  Commons : 
"Illustrious  man,  before  whom  all  borrowed  greatness  sinks  into 
insignificance."  Contemplate  the  character  of  Lord  Brougham, 
pre-eminent  for  two  generations  in  every  department  of  human 
activity  and  thought,  and  then  impress  upon  the  memories  of 
your  children  his  deliberate  judgment:  "Until  time  shall  be  no 
more,  will  a  test  of  the  progress  which  our  race  has  made  in 
wisdom  and  virtue  be  derived  from  the  veneration  paid  to  the  im- 
mortal name  of  Washington." 

Chatham,  who,  with  Clive,  conquered  an  empire  in  the  East, 
died  broken-hearted  at  the  loss  of  the  empire  in  the  West,  by  fol- 
lies which  even  his  power  and  eloquence  could  not  prevent.  Pitt 
saw  the  vast  creations  of  his  diplomacy  shattered  at  Austerlitz, 
and  fell  murmuring :  "My  country !  how  I  leave  my  country !" 
Napoleon  caused  a  noble  tribute  to  Washington  to  be  read  at 
the  head  of  his  armies ;  but,  unable  to  rise  to  Washington's  great- 
ness, witnessed  the  vast  structure  erected  by  conquest  and  ce- 
mented by  blood,  to  minister  to  his  own  ambition  and  pride,  crum- 
ble into  fragments  and,  an  exile  and  a  prisoner,  breathed 
his  last  babbling  of  battle-fields  and  carnage.  Washington, 
with  his  finger  upon  his  pulse,  felt  the  presence  of  death,  and 


WASHINGTON'S  INAUGURATION  21 

calmly  reviewing  the  past  and  forecasting  the  future,  answered 
to  the  summons  of  the  grim  messenger,  "It  is  well" ;  and  as  his 
mighty  soul  ascended  to  God,  the  land  was  deluged  with  tears 
and  the  world  united  in  his  eulogy.  Blot  out  from  the  page  of 
history  the  names  of  all  the  great  actors  of  his  time  in  the  drama 
of  nations,  and  preserve  the  name  of  Washington,  and  still  the 
century  would  be  renowned. 

We  stand  to-day  upon  the  dividing  line  between  the  first  and 
second  century  of  constitutional  government.  There  are  no 
clouds  overhead,  and  no  convulsions  under  our  feet.  We  rever- 
ently return  thanks  to  Almighty  God  for  the  past,  and  with  con- 
fident and  hopeful  promise  march  upon  sure  ground  toward  the 
future.  The  simple  facts  of  these  hundred  years  paralyze  the 
imagination,  and  we  contemplate  the  vast  accumulations  of  the 
century  with  awe  and  pride.  Our  population  has  grown  from 
four  to  sixty-five  millions.  Its  center  moving  westward  five  hun- 
dred miles  since  1789,  is  eloquent  with  the  founding  of  cities 
and  the  birth  of  States.  New  settlements,  clearing  the  forests 
and  subduing  the  prairies,  and  adding  four  millions  to  the  few 
thousands  of  farms  which  were  the  support  of  Washington's 
Republic,  create  one  of  the  great  granaries  of  the  world  and  open 
exhaustless  reservoirs  of  national  wealth. 

The  infant  industries,  which  the  first  act  of  our  Administra- 
tion sought  to  encourage,  now  give  remunerative  employment 
to  more  people  than  inhabited  the  Republic  at  the  beginning  of 
Washington's  Presidency.  The  grand  total  of  their  annual  out- 
put of  seven  thousand  millions  of  dollars  in  value  places  the 
United  States  first  among  the  manufacturing  countries  of  the 
earth.  One-half  of  all  the  railroads,  and  one-quarter  of  all  the 
telegraph  lines  of  the  world  within  our  borders,  testify  to  the 
volume,  variety,  and  value  of  an  internal  commerce  which  makes 
these  States,  if  need  be,  independent  and  self-supporting.  These 
hundred  years  of  development  under  favoring  political  conditions 
have  brought  the  sum  of  our  national  wealth  to  a  figure  which 
is  past  the  results  of  a  thousand  years  for  the  Motherland,  her- 
self otherwise  the  richest  of  modern  empires. 

During  this  generation  a  civil  war  of  unequaled  magnitude 
caused  the  expenditure  of  eight  thousand  millions  of  dollars,  and 
the  loss  in  killed  of  six  hundred  thousand  and  in  permanent  dis- 
ablement of  more  than  a  million  young  men;  and  yet  the  im- 


22  ORATIONS   AND   MEMORIAL   ADDRESSES 

petuous  progress  of  the  North  and  the  marvelous  industrial  de- 
velopment of  the  new  and  free  South  have  obliterated  the  evi- 
dences of  destruction  and  made  the  war  a  memory,  and  have 
stimulated  production  until  our  annual  surplus  nearly  equals  that 
of  England,  France,  and  Germany  combined.  The  teeming  mil- 
lions of  Asia  till  the  patient  soil  and  work  the  shuttle  and  loom 
as  their  fathers  have  done  for  ages ;  modern  Europe  has  felt  the 
influence  and  received  the  benefit  of  the  incalculable  multiplica- 
tion of  force  by  inventive  genius  since  the  Napoleonic  wars ;  and 
yet,  only  two  hundred  and  sixty-nine  years  after  the  little  band  of 
Pilgrims  landed  on  Plymouth  Rock,  our  people,  numbering  less 
than  one-fifteenth  of  the  inhabitants  of  the  globe,  do  one-third  of 
its  mining,  one-fourth  of  its  manufacturing,  one-fifth  of  its  agri- 
culture, and  own  one-sixth  of  its  wealth. 

This  realism  of  material  prosperity,  surpassing  the  wildest 
creation  of  the  romancers  who  have  astonished  and  delighted 
mankind,  would  be  full  of  danger  for  the  present  and  menace  for 
the  future,  if  the  virtue,  intelligence,  and  independence  of  the 
people  were  not  equal  to  the  wise  regulation  of  its  uses  and  the 
stern  prevention  of  its  abuses.  But  following  the  growth  and 
power  of  the  great  factors,  whose  aggregation  of  capital  made 
possible  the  tremendous  pace  of  the  settlement  of  our  national 
domain,  the  building  of  our  great  cities  and  the  opening  of  the 
lines  of  communication  which  have  unified  our  country  and  cre- 
ated our  resources,  have  come  national  and  state  legislation  and 
supervision.  Twenty  millions — a  vast  majority  of  our  people  of 
intelligent  age — acknowledging  the  authority  of  their  several 
churches,  twelve  millions  of  children  in  the  common  schools,  three 
hundred  and  forty-five  universities  and  colleges  for  the  higher 
education  of  men  and  two  hundred  for  women,  four  hundred 
and  fifty  institutions  of  learning  for  science,  law,  medicine,  and 
theology,  are  the  despair  of  the  scoffer  and  the  demagogue,  and 
the  firm  support  of  civilization  and  liberty. 

Steam  and  electricity  have  not  only  changed  the  commerce, 
but  have  also  revolutionized  the  governments  of  the  world.  They 
have  given  to  the  press  its  powers  and  brought  all  races  and  na- 
tionalities into  touch  and  sympathy.  They  have  tested  and  are 
trying  the  strength  of  all  systems  to  stand  the  strain  and  con- 
form to  the  conditions  which  follow  the  germinating  influences 
of  American  democracy.     At  the  time  of  the  inauguration  of 


WASHINGTON'S  INAUGURATION  23 

Washington,  seven  royal  families  ruled  as  many  kingdoms  in 
Italy,  but  six  of  them  have  seen  their  thrones  overturned  and 
their  countries  disappear  from  the  map  of  Europe.  Most  of  the 
kings,  princes,  dukes,  and  margraves  of  Germany,  who  reigned 
despotically  and  sold  their  soldiers  for  foreign  service,  have 
passed  into  history,  and  their  heirs  have  neither  prerogatives 
nor  domain.  Spain  has  gone  through  many  violent  changes, 
and  the  permanency  of  her  present  government  seems  to  depend 
upon  the  feeble  life  of  an  infant  prince.  France,  our  ancient 
friend,  with  repeated  and  bloody  revolutions,  has  tried  the  gov- 
ernment of  Bourbon  and  Convention,  of  Directory  and  Consu- 
late, of  Empire  and  Citizen  King,  of  hereditary  Sovereign  and 
Republic,  of  Empire,  and  again  Republic.  The  Hapsburg  and 
the  Hohenzollern,  after  convulsions  which  have  rocked  the  foun- 
dations of  their  thrones,  have  been  compelled  to  concede  consti- 
tutions for  their  people,  and  to  divide  with  them  the  arbitrary 
power  wielded  so  autocratically  and  brilliantly  by  Maria  Theresa 
and  Frederick  the  Great.  The  royal  will  of  George  III.  could 
crowd  the  American  colonies  into  rebellion,  and  wage  war  upon 
them  until  they  were  lost  to  his  kingdom;  but  the  authority  of 
the  Crown  has  devolved  upon  ministers  who  hold  office  subject 
to  the  approval  of  the  representatives  of  the  people,  and  the  equal 
powers  of  the  House  of  Lords  have  become  vested  in  the  Com- 
mons, leaving  to  the  Peers  only  the  shadow  of  their  ancient  privi- 
leges. But  to-day  the  American  people,  after  all  the  dazzling  de- 
velopments of  the  century,  are  still  happily  living  under  the  Gov- 
ernment of  Washington.  The  Constitution  during  all  that  period 
has  been  amended  only  upon  the  lines  laid  down  in  the  original 
instrument,  and  in  conformity  with  the  recorded  opinions  of  the 
Fathers.  The  first  great  addition  was  the  incorporation  of  a 
Bill  of  Rights,  and  the  last  the  embedding  into  the  Constitution 
of  the  immortal  principle  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence — 
of  the  equality  of  all  men  before  the  law.  No  crisis  has  been  too 
perilous  for  its  powers,  no  evolution  too  rapid  for  its  adaptation, 
and  no  expansion  beyond  its  easy  grasp  and  administration.  It 
has  assimilated  diverse  nationalities  with  warring  traditions,  cus- 
toms, conditions,  and  languages,  imbued  them  with  its  spirit, 
and  won  their  passionate  loyalty  and  love. 

The  flower  of  the  youth  of  the  nations  of  Continental  Europe 
are  conscripted  from  productive  industries  and  drilling  in  camps. 


24  ORATIONS   AND   MEMORIAL   ADDRESSES 

Vast  armies  stand  in  battle  array  along  the  frontiers,  and  a  Kais- 
er's whim  or  a  Minister's  mistake  may  precipitate  the  most  de- 
structive war  of  modern  times.  Both  monarchical  and  republican 
governments  are  seeking  safety  in  the  repression  and  suppression 
of  opposition  and  criticism.  The  volcanic  forces  of  democratic 
aspiration  and  socialistic  revolt  are  rapidly  increasing  and  threat- 
en peace  and  security.  We  turn  from  these  gathering  storms 
to  the  British  Isles  and  find  their  people  in  the  throes  of  a  political 
crisis  involving  the  form  and  substance  of  their  Government, 
and  their  statesmen  far  from  canfident  that  the  enfranchised  and 
unprepared  masses  will  wisely  use  their  power. 

But  for  us  no  army  exhausts  our  resources  nor  consumes 
our  youth.  Our  navy  must  needs  increase  in  order  that  the  pro- 
tecting flag  may  follow  the  expanding  commerce  which  is  to 
compete  successfully  in  all  the  markets  of  the  world.  The  sun 
of  our  destiny  is  still  rising,  and  its  rays  illumine  vast  territories 
as  yet  unoccupied  and  undeveloped,  which  are  to  be  the  happy 
homes  of  millions  of  people.  The  questions  which  affect  the 
powers  of  government  and  the  expansion  or  limitation  of  the 
authority  of  the  Federal  Constitution  are  so  completely  settled, 
and  so  unanimously  approved,  that  our  political  divisions  pro- 
duce only  the  healthy  antagonism  of  parties  which  is  necessary 
for  the  preservation  of  liberty.  Our  institutions  furnish  the  full 
equipment  of  shield  and  spear  for  the  battles  of  freedom; 
and  absolute  protection  against  every  danger  that  threatens 
the  welfare  of  the  people  will  always  be  found  in  the  intelli- 
gence which  appreciates  their  value,  and  the  courage  and  morality 
with  which  their  powers  are  exercised.  The  spirit  of  Washing- 
ton fills  the  executive  office.  Presidents  may  not  rise  to  the  full 
measure  of  his  greatness,  but  they  must  not  fall  below  his  stand- 
ard of  public  duty  and  obligation.  His  life  and  character,  con- 
scientiously studied  and  thoroughly  understood  by  coming  gene- 
rations, will  be  for  them  a  liberal  education  for  private  life  and 
public  station,  for  citizenship  and  patriotism,  for  love  and  de- 
votion to  Union  and  liberty.  With  their  inspiring  past  and  splen- 
did present,  the  people  of  these  United  States,  heirs  of  a  hundred 
years  marvelously  rich  in  all  that  adds  to  the  glory  and  greatness 
of  a  nation,  with  an  abiding  trust  in  the  stability  and  elasticity 
of  their  Constitution,  and  an  abounding  faith  in  themselves,  hail 
the  coming  century  with  hope  and  joy. 


POLITICAL  MISSION  OF  UNITED  STATES 


ORATION  ON  THE  POLITICAL  MISSION  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES,,  AT 
THE  CELEBRATION  OF  THE  BIRTHDAY  OF  WASHINGTON,  BY 
THE  UNION  LEAGUE  CLUB  OF  CHICAGO,  FEBRUARY  22,    1 888. 

Mr.  President  and  Gentlemen  :  The  subject  assigned  to 
me  falls  more  naturally  into  the  domain  of  the  philosophical 
theorist,  or  of  the  practical  politician,  than  of  the  active  man  of 
affairs.  We  are  all  men  of  business,  and  absorbed  in  its  details, 
and  neither  our  time  nor  our  associations  admit  of  prolonged 
speculations  upon  the  possibilities  of  government.  We  are  an 
industrial  people,  and  the  great  question  with  us  is,  How  do  in- 
stitutions best  serve  our  needs  ?  We  are  not  so  wholly  material- 
istic that  we  cannot  deeply  feel  the  sentiments  of  liberty  and 
nationality,  and  yet  both  form  the  broad  foundation  upon  which 
we  must  build  for  permanence.  No  intelligent  consideration  of 
the  question  affecting  our  present  and  future  is  possible  without 
an  understanding  of  the  successive  stages  in  the  development  of 
our  system. 

The  political  mission  of  the  United  States  has  so  far  been 
wrought  out  by  individuals  and  territorial  conditions.  Four  men 
of  unequaled  genius  have  dominated  our  century,  and  the  growth 
of  the  West  has  revolutionized  the  Republic.  The  principles 
which  have  heretofore  controlled  the  policy  of  the  country  have 
mainly  owed  their  force  and  acceptance  to  Hamilton,  Jefferson, 
Webster,  and  Lincoln. 

The  two  great  creative  contests  of  America  were  purely  de- 
fensive. They  were  neither  the  struggles  of  dynastic  ambitions 
nor  of  democratic  revenges.  They  were  calm  and  determined 
efforts  for  good  government,  and  closed  without  rancor  or  the 
husbanding  of  resources  for  retaliation.  The  Revolution  was  a 
war  for  the  preservation  of  well-defined  constitutional  liberties, 
but  dependent  upon  them  were  the  industrial  freedom  necessary 
for  the  development  of  the  country,  the  promotion  of  manufac- 
tures, and  independence  of  foreign  producers. 

The  first  question  which  met  the  young  confederacy,  torn 

25 


26  ORATIONS   AND   MEMORIAL   ADDRESSES 

by  the  jealousies  of  its  stronger  and  weaker  colonies,  was  the 
necessity  of  a  central  power  strong  enough  to  deal  with  foreign 
nations  and  to  protect  commerce  between  the  States.  At  this 
period  Alexander  Hamilton  became  the  saviour  of  the  Republic. 
If  Shakespeare  is  the  commanding  originating  genius  of  Eng- 
land, and  Goethe  of  Germany,  Hamilton  must  occupy  that  place 
among  Americans.  At  seventeen  he  had  formulated  the  princi- 
ples of  government  by  the  people  so  clearly  that  no  succeeding 
publicist  has  improved  them.  Before  he  was  twenty-five  he  had 
made  suggestions  to  the  hopeless  financiers  of  the  Revolution 
which  revived  credit  and  carried  through  the  war.  With  few 
precedents  to  guide  him,  he  created  a  fiscal  system  for  the  United 
States  which  was  so  elastic  and  comprehensive  that  it  still  con- 
trols the  vast  operations  of  the  treasury  and  the  customs.  Though 
but  a  few  years  at  the  Bar  after  his  retirement  from  public  life, 
his  briefs  are  embodied  in  Constitution  and  statutes,  and  to  his 
masterly  address  the  press  owes  its  freedom.  This  superb  intelli- 
gence, at  once  philosophic  and  practical,  and  which  could  instruct 
with  unrivaled  lucidity  the  dullest  mind  on  the  bearing  of 
the  action  of  the  present  on  the  destiny  of  the  future,  so  im- 
pressed upon  his  contemporaries  the  necessity  of  a  central  Govern- 
ment with  large  powers  that  the  Constitution,  now  one  hundred 
and  one  years  old,  was  adopted,  and  the  United  States  began 
their  life  as  a  nation. 

At  this  period,  in  every  part  of  the  world,  the  doctrine  that 
the  Government  is  the  source  of  power,  and  that  the  people  have 
only  such  rights  as  the  Government  had  given,  was  practically 
unquestioned;  but  the  young  Republic  began  its  existence  witli 
the  new  and  dynamic  principle  that  the  people  are  the  sole  source 
of  authority,  and  that  the  Government  has  such  powers  as  they 
grant  to  it,  and  no  others. 

Doubt  and  debate  are  the  safety-valves  of  freedom,  and 
Thomas  Jefferson  created  both.  He  feared  the  loss  of  popular 
rights  in  centralization,  and  believed  that  the  reserved  powers 
of  the  States  were  the  only  guarantee  of  the  liberties  of  the  peo- 
ple. He  stands  supreme  in  our  history  as  a  political  leader,  and 
left  no  successor.  He  destroyed  the  party  of  Washington,  Ham- 
ilton, and  Adams,  and  build  up  an  organization  which  was  domi- 
nant in  the  country  for  half  a  century.  The  one  question  thus 
raised  and  overshadowing  all  others  for  a  hundred  years,  half 


POLITICAL  MISSION  OF  UNITED  STATES  27 

satisfied  by  compromises,  half  suppressed  by  threats,  at  times 
checking  prosperity,  at  times  paralyzing  progress,  at  times  pro- 
ducing panics,  at  times  preventing  the  solution  of  fiscal  and  in- 
dustrial problems  vital  to  our  expansion,  was :  Are  we  a  Nation  ? 

For  nearly  fifty  years  the  prevailing  sentiment  favored  the 
idea  that  the  federal  compact  was  a  contract  between  sovereign 
States.  Had  the  forces  of  disunion  been  ready  for  the  arbitra- 
ment of  arms,  the  results  would  have  been  fatal  to  the  Union. 
That  ablest  observer  of  the  American  experiment,  De  Tocque- 
ville,  was  so  impressed  by  this  that  he  based  upon  it  an  absolute 
prediction  of  the  destruction  of  the  Republic.  But,  at  the  critical 
period*,  when  the  popularity,  courage,  and  audacity  of  General 
Jackson  were  almost  the  sole  hope  of  nationality,  Webster  deliv- 
ered in  the  Senate  a  speech  unequaled  in  the  annals  of  eloquence 
for  its  immediate  effects  and  lasting  results.  The  appeals  of 
Demosthenes  to  the  Athenian  democracy,  the  denunciations  of 
Cicero  against  the  conspiracies  of  Catiline,  the  passionate  outcry 
of  Mirabeau  pending  the  French  Revolution,  the  warnings  of 
Chatham  in  the  British  Parliament,  the  fervor  of  Patrick  Henry 
for  independence,  were  of  temporary  interest,  and  yielded  feeble 
results,  compared  with  the  tremendous  consequences  of  this 
mighty  utterance. 

It  broke  the  spell  of  supreme  loyalty  to  the  State  and  created 
an  unquenchable  and  resistless  patriotism  for  the  United  States. 
It  appeared  in  the  schoolbooks,  and,  by  declaiming  glowing  ex- 
tracts therefrom,  the  juvenile  orators  of  that  and  succeeding 
generations  won  prizes  at  academic  exhibitions  and  in  mimic 
congresses.  Children  educated  parents,  and  the  pride  of  the 
fathers  and  the  kindled  imaginations  of  the  sons  united  them  in 
a  noble  ideal  of  the  great  Republic.  No  subsequent  patriotic 
oration  met  the  requirements  of  any  public  occasion,  great  or 
small,  which  did  not  breathe  the  sentiment  of  "Liberty  and  union, 
now  and  forever,  one  and  inseparable."  As  the  coldest  clod, 
when  first  inspired  by  the  grand  passion  of  his  life,  becomes  a 
chivalric  knight,  so,  when  at  last  the  Union  was  assailed  by  arms, 
love  of  country  burst  the  bonds  of  materialism  and  sacrificed 
everything  for  the  preservation  of  the  nation's  life.  From  the 
unassailable  conviction  of  the  power  of  the  General  Government 
to  protect  itself,  to  coerce  a  State,  to  enforce  its  laws  everywhere, 
and  to  use  all  the  resources  of  the  people  to  put  down  rebellion, 


28  ORATIONS   AND   MEMORIAL   ADDRESSES 

came  not  only  patriotism  but  public  conscience.  With  conscience 
was  the  courage,  so  rare  in  commercial  communities,  which  will 
peril  business  and  apparent  prosperity  for  an  idea.  This  de- 
feated the  slave  power,  and  is  to-day  the  most  potent  factor  in 
every  reform. 

The  field  for  the  growth  and  development  of  this  sentiment, 
and  for  its  practical  application  without  fear  of  consequences, 
was  the  Great  West.  Virginia's  gift  to  the  Union  of  the  North- 
west Territory,  which  now  constitutes  five  great  States,  and  its 
prompt  dedication  to  freedom,  and  Jefferson's  purchase  from  the 
First  Napoleon  of  the  vast  area  now  known  as  Arkansas,  Colo- 
rado, Iowa,  Kansas,  Louisiana,  Minnesota,  Missouri,  Mississippi, 
Nebraska,  Dakota,  Montana,  Wyoming,  and  the  Indian  Terri- 
tory, were  the  two  acts  of  generosity  and  consummate  states- 
manship which  definitely  outlined  the  destiny  of  the  Republic 
and  its  political  mission. 

In  the  genesis  of  nations  there  is  no  parallel  with  the  growth 
of  the  West  and  its  influence  upon  the  world.  The  processes  of 
its  settlement  reduce  to  comparative  insignificance  the  romances 
and  realities  of  the  state-builders  of  the  past.  Movements  of 
peoples  which  at  other  periods  have  been  devastating  migrations, 
or  due  to  the  delirium  of  speculations,  are  here  the  wise  founding 
and  sober  development  of  prosperous  communities. 

The  fabled  Argo,  sailing  for  the  Golden  Fleece,  neither  bore 
nor  found  the  wealth  carried  and  discovered  by  the  emigrants' 
wagons  on  the  prairies.  The  original  conditions  surrounding 
our  hardy  and  adventurous  pioneers ;  the  riches  in  poverty,  where 
hope  inspired  the  efforts,  and  the  self-denial  to  clear,  or  develop, 
or  improve,  or  stock  the  farm,  which  was  to  be  at  once  the  family 
home  and  estate ;  the  church  and  the  school-house  growing  simul- 
taneously with  the  settlements;  citizenship  of  the  great  Repub- 
lic, which  could  only  come  through  the  admission  of  the  territory 
as  a  State  into  the  grand  confederacy  of  commonwealths,  and 
only  be  lost  by  the  dissolution  of  the  Union;  citizenship,  which 
meant  not  only  political  dignity  and  independence,  but  incalcul- 
able commercial  and  business  advantages  and  opportunities — 
these  were  the  elements  which  made  the  West,  and  these  were 
the  educators  of  the  dominant  power  in  the  nation  for  the  present 
and  the  future.  Thus  the  West,  the  child  of  the  Union,  met  the 
slave  power  with  determined  resistance,  and  its  threats  with  a 


POLITICAL  MISSION  OF  UNITED  STATES  29 

defiant  assertion  of  the  inherent  powers  of  the  Nation,  and  with 
the  pledge  of  its  young  and  heroic  life  for  their  enforcement. 
This  double  sentiment  found  its  oracle  and  representative  in  Ab- 
raham Lincoln.  He  consolidated  the  Northwest  by  declaring 
that  the  Mississippi  should  flow  unvexed  to  the  sea.  In  the  great 
debate  with  Douglas,  his  challenge  rang  through  the  whole  land, 
a  summons  to  battle.  "A  house  divided  against  itself,"  he  said, 
"cannot  stand,  I  believe  this  Government  cannot  endure  per- 
manently half -slave  and  half-free.  I  do  not  expect  the  Union  to 
be  dissolved — I  do  not  expect  the  house  to  fall — but  I  do  expect 
it  will  cease  to  be  divided."  To  enforce  that  expectation  he  called 
a  million  men  to  arms,  he  emancipated  four  millions  of  slaves 
by  Presidential  proclamation,  and  when  the  victory  was  won  for 
liberty  and  unity,  this  most  majestic  figure  of  our  time,  clothed 
with  the  unlimited  powers  of  a  triumphant  Government,  stood 
between  the  passions  of  the  strife,  and  commanded  peace  and 
forgiveness.  When  he  fell  by  the  hand  of  the  assassin  the  hun- 
dred years'  struggle  for  national  existence  was  ended.  He 
throttled  sectionalism  and  buried  it.  The  Republic  for  which 
half  a  million  men  had  died  and  a  million  had  been  wounded  was 
so  firmly  bedded  in  the  hearts,  the  minds,  and  the  blood  of  its 
people,  that  the  question  of  dissolution  will  never  more  form  part 
of  the  schemes  of  its  politicians  or  require  the  wisdom  of  its 
statesmen  and  the  patriotism  of  its  people. 

It  is  impossible  to  estimate  the  effect  upon  our  material  and 
moral  development  of  the  disappearance  of  the  dread  and  deadly 
issue  of  dissolution  and  civil  war  from  our  politics.  The  Nation, 
emancipated  from  the  thraldom  of  perpetual  peril,  advanced  by 
leaps  and  bounds  in  its  fiscal  policy  and  industrial  progress.  Our 
substantial  growth  in  every  element  of  national  strength  since 
the  war,  has  been  greater  than  in  all  the  years  that  preceded  it. 
But  the  very  conditions  of  this  tremendous  development,  and  the 
mighty  forces  concentrated  and  involved,  present  grave  problems, 
which  must  be  solved  if  we  would  be  safe.  Said  De  Tocque- 
ville,  in  1834:  "I  cannot  believe  in  the  duration  of  a  govern- 
ment whose  task  is  to  hold  together  forty  different  peoples,  spread 
over  a  surface  equal  to  the  half  of  Europe,  to  avoid  rivalries, 
ambitions,  and  struggles  among  them,  and  to  unite  the  action 
of  their  independent  wills  for  the  accomplishment  of  the  same 
plans.     Unless  I  am  greatly  mistaken,  the  Federal  Government 


30  ORATIONS   AND   MEMORIAL   ADDRESSES 

of  the  United  States  tends  to  become  daily  weaker ;  it  draws  back 
from  one  kind  of  business  after  another;  it  more  and  more  re- 
stricts the  sphere  of  its  action.  Naturally  feeble,  it  abandons 
even  the  appearance  of  force." 

With  the  admission  of  the  Territories  already  knocking  at  the 
door  and  fully  qualified  to  become  States,  we  will  have  reached 
De  Tocqueville's  fatal  forty.  But  in  the  mean  time  the  pendulum 
of  our  politics  has  swung  back  from  the  Jeffersonian  to  the  Ham- 
iltonian  extreme.  The  Federal  Government  is  everything,  the 
States  in  a  national  sense  nothing.  The  abolition  of  slavery,  and 
with  it  sectional  lines,  and  the  Civil  War,  have  done  much  to  pro- 
duce this ;  but  commerce  has  done  more. 

The  application  of  steam  and  electricity  to  trade  has  made 
forty  commonwealths  one.  It  is  not  distance  alone  that  creates 
the  dangers  of  the  disintegration  of  a  government,  but  difficulty 
of  intercommunication.  Sixty  millions  of  people  covering  a  con- 
tinent are  in  much  closer  communion  to-day  than  were  the 
four  millions  along  the  Atlantic  coast  at  the  adoption  of  the  Con- 
stitution. The  President,  whose  authority  De  Tocqueville 
thought  weak  and  gradually  being  reduced  to  a  shadow,  has  ac- 
quired power  beyond  the  dreams  and  fears  of  the  fathers.  The 
arbitrary  arrests,  the  proclamations  of  far-reaching  imports  at 
which  Mr.  Lincoln  did  not  hesitate,  indicate  what  a  President  may 
do  in  time  of  war.  A  civil  service  four  times  as  large  as  our 
standing  army,  and  subject  to  executive  appointment  and  re- 
moval, and  the  frequent  exercise  of  the  veto  power  by  President 
Cleveland,  exhibit  the  extent  of  his  powers,  even  in  peace. 

The  United  States  has  been  fortunate  in  its  Presidents.  The 
poorest  and  weakest  of  them  had  patriotism  and  a  sense  of  pub- 
lic duty  which  prevented  the  resort  to  desperate  expedients  for 
the  retention  of  power.  But  as  the  country  increases  in  popula- 
tion and  in  new  communities,  the  functions  of  the  Executive  be- 
come more  potent.  The  legislative  and  judicial  branches  remain 
the  same,  but  the  President  grows  as  a  potential  factor  of  Gov- 
ernment. We  are  always  at  the  mercy  of  the  majority,  but  its 
intelligence  has  heretofore  protected  us  from  its  easily  -stated  and 
possible  peril.  But  with  a  hundred  millions  of  people  and  a  com- 
mensurate civil  service;  with  the  blind  fury  of  intense  political 
passions;  with  an  able,  audacious,  and  unscrupulous  President, 


POLITICAL  MISSION  OF  UNITED  STATES  31 

anxious  for  re-election,  and  sustained  by  his  party  in  anything 
which  secures  it,  the  situation  will  be  full  of  danger. 

The  best  of  Presidents  have  lowered  the  standard  of  admin- 
istration when  seeking  a  second  term.  The  present  Executive 
is  an  officer  highly  esteemed  for  singular  honesty  and  directness 
of  purpose,  and  remarkable  for  inexperience  in  the  duties  of  Gov- 
ernment and  for  ignorance  of  the  great  issues  before  the  country. 
With  perfect  frankness  and  honest  intention  to  carry  out  his 
pledges  he  defied  the  traditions  of  his  party  in  his  bold  utterances 
for  Civil  Service  Reform.  He  both  understood  what  he  was 
promising,  and  believed  he  had  the  courage  and  the  power  to 
make  good  his  word.  The  best  sentiment  of  the  country  is  over- 
whelmingly behind  him  on  this  question.  And  yet,  as  the  can- 
vass of  1888  opens,  the  tremendous  advantage  of  an  auxiliary 
force  of  one  hundred  thousand  faithful  workers  has  relegated 
Roman  virtue  to  the  rear  and  brought  the  spoils  system  to  the 
front.  Methods  have  changed,  and  the  borrowed  nomenclature 
of  Reform  means  the  old  practices,  with  the  familiar  result  of 
the  constant  substitution  of  the  partisan  recruit  for  the  veteran 
official. 

With  the  growth  of  the  Republic,  the  known  and  implied 
powers  of  the  President  become  of  increasing  value.  As,  with 
larger  and  more  populous  districts,  Congress  becomes  more  dis- 
tant and  vague,  the  people  will  need  and  demand  an  executive  to 
whom  appeal  can  be  immediate,  and  whose  responsibility  is  di- 
rect. He  should  be  made,  however,  by  constitutional  prohibition, 
ineligible  for  a  second  term.  As  the  peculiarities  of  his  position 
on  retirement  from  office  prevent  his  participation  in  the  ordinary 
business  avocations  of  the  citizen,  he  should  receive  an  adequate 
pension  for  life,  and  on  the  retired  list,  though  still  in  the  ser- 
vice, be  subject  to  call  for  any  public  duty  where  his  experience, 
character,  and  ability  would  be  of  value.  Thus  his  administra- 
tion, free  from  temptation  and  the  baser  ambitions,  would  be 
impelled  with  resolute  and  unflinching  endeavor  to  win  the  plau- 
dits of  the  present  and  the  admiration  and  gratitude  of  posterity. 

While  no  act  or  thought  should  tend  to  resurrect  the  baleful 
doctrine  of  State  Sovereignty,  we  need  to  be  educated  in  the  di- 
rection of  State  Rights.  The  immensity  of  our  nationality  and 
its  centralizing  tendencies  create  a  feeling  of  dependence  upon 
Government  which  enfeebles  the  American  character  and  is  hostile 


32  ORATIONS   AND   MEMORIAL  ADDRESSES 

to  American  liberty.  Home  rule  is  the  school  and  inspiration  of 
manliness  and  independence.  The  town  meeting  brings  power  di- 
rectly to  the  people,  where  it  belongs,  and  clearly  and  sharply 
draws  the  line  between  public  business  and  private  business.  The 
American  traveling  in  Europe  chafes  under  the  restraints  of  ad- 
ministration. The  bayonet  or  the  baton  is  always  by  his  side. 
The  Government  carries  his  person  and  goods,  transmits  his 
message,  appears  as  a  proprietor  in  the  mine  and  factory,  and 
suffocates  enterprise,  development,  and  ambition.  The  dema- 
gogue and  the  agitator  are  already  appealing  to  the  sentiment 
for  a  strong  government ;  to  make  it  so  strong  that  it  will  both 
impoverish  and  enrich  with  its  burdens  and  its  bounties,  while  the 
citizen,  surrendering  his  individuality,  will  go  for  everything 
to  the  Government.  This  is  the  underlying  principle  of  despot- 
ism, under  whose  operation  there  would  have  been  no  great  Re- 
public, and  the  West  would  have  remained  a  wilderness. 

We  are  too  great  and  too  generous,  and  have  too  many  and 
vast  opportunities,  to  adopt  the  selfish  motto  of  "America  for 
Americans," — meaning  to  include  only  those  who  are  now  citi- 
zens and  their  descendants.  But  the  needs  of  the  present  and 
the  preparation  for  the  future  require  that  all  citizens  shall  be 
Americans.  Healthy  patriotism  can  be  sentimental,  but  it  must 
be  intelligent.  Said  the  philosopher:  "Let  me  write  the  songs 
of  a  people,  and  I  care  not  who  make  their  laws."  That  day 
has  passed,  never  to  return.  Steam  and  electricity  have  broken 
the  spell.  Revolutions  can  no  longer  be  conjured,  nor  ancient 
rights  defended,  by  melody.  The  marching  music  of  the  columns 
of  liberty  must  be,  not  the  Marseillaise  or  the  national  anthem, 
but  the  high  and  harmonious  teachings  of  the  common  school. 

There  is  an  intellectual  awakening  in  this  land,  and  its  stimu- 
lants affect  the  well-being  and  the  safety  of  life,  and  property, 
and  law.  The  trades-union  is  a  debating  club;  a  session  of  the 
knights,  a  congress  of  labor;  the  Sabbath  picnic  is  a  school,  not 
of  divinity,  but  of  theology.  The  questions  discussed  are  vital 
in  their  proper  solution  to  the  State,  Society,  and  the  Church. 
The  churches  of  all  creeds,  and  men  of  every  faith,  are  doing 
magnificent  work  in  the  conservation  of  the  virtues  and  habits 
of  liberty,  but  the  Preacher  has  lost  his  political  influence  and  the 
Priest  much  of  the  power  he  possessed  in  the  more  primitive 
period. 


POLITICAL  MISSION  OF  UNITED  STATES  33 

The  teachers  of  disintegration,  destruction,  and  infidelity  pos- 
sess the  activity  of  propagandists  and  the  self-sacrificing  spirit 
of  martyrs.  Their  field  is  ignorance,  their  recruiting  sergeant  is 
distress.  Only  faith  grounded  in  knowledge  can  meet  these  dan- 
gerous, ceaseless,  and  corrupting  influences.  In  the  midst  of  the 
perils,  the  sheet-anchor  of  the  Ship  of  State  is  the  common  school. 
Before  the  era  of  great  cities  and  crowded  populations,  when  it 
was  easy  both  to  earn  a  living  and  to  gain  a  competence,  when 
the  best  influences  of  every  settlement  reached  every  part  of  it, 
the  State  met  every  requirement  in  furnishing,  free,  a  fair  busi- 
ness education.  But  now  by  far  the  larger  part  of  our  people 
have  no  common  ancestry  in  the  Revolutionary  War,  and  a  gene- 
ration has  come  to  its  majority  which  knows  little  of  the  Rebel- 
lion and  its  results.  Colonists  from  Europe  form  communities, 
both  in  city  and  country,  where  they  retain  the  language,  cus- 
toms, and  traditions  of  the  Fatherland,  and  live  and  die  in  the 
belief  that  the  Government  is  their  enemy.  To  meet  these  con- 
ditions the  State  provides  an  education  which  does  not  educate, 
and  the  prison  and  the  poorhouse. 

Ignorance  judges  the  invisible  by  the  visible.  Turn  on  the 
lights.  Teach,  first  and  last,  Americanism.  Let  no  youth  leave 
the  school  without  being  thoroughly  grounded  in  the  history,  the 
principles,  and  the  incalculable  blessings  of  American  liberty.  Let 
the  boys  be  the  trained  soldiers  of  constitutional  freedom,  the 
girls  the  intelligent  mothers  of  freemen,  and  the  sons  of  the  an- 
archists will  become  the  bulwarks  of  the  law.  American  liberty 
must  be  protected  against  hostile  invasion. 

We  welcome  the  fugitives  from  oppression,  civil  or  religious, 
who  seek  our  asylum  with  the  honest  purpose  of  making  it  their 
homes.  We  have  room  and  hospitality  for  emigrants  who  come 
to  our  shores  to  better  their  condition  by  the  adoption  of  our 
citizenship,  with  all  its  duties  and  responsibilities.  But  we  have 
no  place  for  imported  criminals,  paupers,  and  pests.  The  revolu- 
tionist who  wants  to  destroy  the  power  of  the  majority  with  the 
same  dynamite  with  which  he  failed  to  assassinate  the  Emperor  or 
the  Czar  is  a  public  enemy,  and  must  be  so  treated.  We  are  no 
longer  in  need  of  the  surplus  population  of  the  Old  World,  and 
must  carefully  examine  our  guests.  The  priceless  gift  of  citizen- 
ship should  never  be  conferred  until  by  years  of  probation  the 
applicant  has  proved  himself  worthy,  and  then  a  rigid  examina- 
Vol.  1—3 


34  ORATIONS   AND   MEMORIAL   ADDRESSES 

tion  in  open  court  should  test  his  knowledge  of  its  limitations  as 
well  as  its  privileges,  and  his  cordial  acceptance  of  both.  It  is 
monstrous  that  the  time  of  our  courts  and  the  patience  of  our 
juries  should  be  occupied  and  tried  in  the  repeated  prosecution 
of  persistent  disturbers  of  the  peace  who  refuse  to  become  citi- 
zens. On  the  first  conviction  by  a  jury  they  should  be  expelled 
from  the  country. 

This  youngest  of  cities,  destined  to  be  one  of  the  greatest 
on  the  earth,  in  deadly  peril  of  fire  and  sack,  with  indomitable 
spirit  and  lofty  courage  saved  civilization  in  American  municip- 
alities, and  the  nation  by  wise  laws  should  prevent  any  possible 
recurrence  of  the  danger.  In  government  by  majorities,  the  ex- 
istence of  the  system  depends  upon  the  purity  of  the  ballot.  The 
minority  must  know  that  it  is  fairly  beaten,  to  accept  peacefully 
its  defeat.  A  crisis  more  critical  than  the  Civil  War  has  twice 
threatened  us,  because  there  was  doubt  as  to  the  honesty  of  the 
vote.  In  the  first  instance  it  was  averted  by  wise  compromise; 
and  in  the  second  the  fears  proved  fallacious.  But  it  is  the  high- 
est duty  to  provide  every  safeguard  against  repetitions  of  such 
dangers.  The  whole  power  and  machinery  of  the  State  must  be 
used  for  the  unbought  and  unintimidated  vote  and  the  fair  count. 
Submission  to  the  will  of  the  majority  has  become  universally 
the  accepted  faith  of  the  people ;  and  while  that  faith  is  unshaken 
no  party  will  ever  appeal  to  the  only  other  alternative,  arms. 

It  is  the  duty  of  the  General  Government  in  all  elections  for 
Congress  or  President  to  protect,  at  every  cost,  the  voter  and 
the  ballot-box.  It  is  the  duty  of  every  State  to  reduce  to  a  mini- 
mum the  opportunities  for  fraud  upon  the  citizen  or  the  im- 
proper influencing  of  his  choice.  It  is  a  general  and  local  scandal 
that  the  expenses  of  the  candidate  have  grown  beyond  the  means 
of  the  poor  and  honest  man.  No  system  can  be  right  or  safe 
under  which  the  treasuries  of  the  opposing  parties  must  be  filled 
with  sums  so  vast  that  they  equal  the  great  accumulations  of  pros- 
perous corporations.  The  ballot  should  be  printed  by  the  State 
and  distributed  at  the  public  cost,  under  conditions  which  would 
enable  the  most  ignorant  voter  to  select  his  ticket  without  help, 
and  deposit  it  with  no  one  knowing  its  contents  but  himself.  Then 
as  the  Republic  grows  in  power  and  population,  its  safety  and 
perpetuity  will  be  assured  by  keeping  pure  the  channels  through 


POLITICAL  MISSION  OF  UNITED  STATES  35 

which  the  ever-increasing  millions  of  freemen  with  more  majestic 
and  impressive  force  express  their  will. 

The  political  mission  of  the  United  States  is  purely  internal. 
The  wise  policy  and  traditions  of  Washington  against  entangling 
alliances  with  foreign  nations  have  been  happily  strengthened 
by  our  geographical  position.  The  moral  effect  of  our  experi- 
ment upon  the  destinies  of  peoples  and  governments  has  been 
greater  than  that  of  all  other  causes  combined.  In  preserving 
in  letter  and  spirit  our  liberties,  in  developing  our  resources  and 
adding  to  the  wealth,  prosperity,  and  power  of  the  Republic,  in 
the  adoption  of  those  measures  which  favor  happiness  and  con- 
tentment within  our  borders,  we  are  indirectly  aiding  the  strug- 
gling masses,  and  furnishing  the  arguments  for,  and  inspiring 
the  hopes  of,  the  patriots  of  every  country  of  the  world. 

It  is  vital  to  the  success  of  our  mission  that  all  questions  be 
boldly  met,  fearlessly  discussed,  and  promptly  acted  upon.  The 
area  of  arable  acres  in  the  United  States  is  20  per  cent,  larger 
than  that  of  China,  which  supports  a  population  of  nearly  four 
hundred  millions.  As  time  is  reckoned  in  the  history  of  nations, 
in  the  near  future  there  will  be  two  hundred  millions  of  people 
in  this  country.  All  of  them  will  be  dependent  upon  industrial 
conditions,  and  the  larger  part  of  them  will  be  wage-earners.  Our 
problem  is  not,  How  can  they  be  controlled?  For  they  are  the 
majority,  and  the  majority  is  the  Government;  but,  How  are  they 
to  be  satisfied  ?  Macaulay's  prediction  has  been  supported  by  the 
ablest  political  economists  of  the  Old  World.  They  claim  that 
with  the  conditions  of  crowded  populations  always  on  the  brink 
of  starvation,  with  hopeless  poverty  and  chronic  distress  such  as 
prevail  under  European  governments,  the  Republic  will  end  in 
anarchy  and  anarchy  in  despotism. 

Whether  there  be  much  or  little  in  these  gloomy  forebodings, 
the  least  of  them  sternly  impresses  the  lesson  of  maintaining  and 
promoting,  by  every  measure  which  experience  has  tested  and 
wisdom  can  suggest,  that  policy  which  will  keep  wages  above  the 
line  of  mere  subsistence,  and  in  the  general  prosperity  of  diversi- 
fied industries  hold  open  the  opportunities  for  every  man  to  rise. 
This  issue  is  broadly  national,  and  is  of  equal  interest  to  the 
North  and  South,  the  East  and  West.  Cheap  transportation  has 
obliterated  the  lines  which  formerly  divided  the  planters  and  the 
manufacturers  and  engendered  and  embittered  the  sectional  con- 


36  ORATIONS   AND   MEMORIAL   ADDRESSES 

troversies.  The  New  South  thrills  with  the  movement  of  mighty 
industries  which  are  developing  her  mines,  utilizing  her  great 
forces  and  resources,  and  founding  her  cities ;  the  flames  of  busy 
furnaces  illumine  her  wasted  fields,  and  near  and  quick  markets 
awaken  to  hitherto  unknown  activities  her  dormant  agriculture. 
The  hum  of  the  spindles  and  the  inspiring  music  of  machinery 
sound  over  the  prairies  and  along  the  lakes  as  well  as  among 
New  England  hills  and  Pennsylvania  mines. 

The  theory  of  the  wealth  of  nations  has  been  discussed  by  the 
ablest  and  most  competent  of  philosophers  and  statesmen,  from 
the  time  of  Adam  Smith,  with  the  demonstrated  result  that  prin- 
ciples of  political  economy  are  not  of  universal  application,  but 
must  be  modified  by  the  conditions  and  necessities  of  different 
nations.  At  the  zenith  of  prosperity,  when  confidence  and  credit 
were  projecting  enterprises  which  covered  the  continent,  and  were 
fraught  with  untold  wealth  and  healthy  expansion,  or  disaster 
and  collapse  upon  a  scale  of  equal  magnitude  and  commensurate 
distress,  President  Cleveland  has  boldly  and  happily  challenged 
the  policy  upon  which  all  these  investments  were  based. 

The  President  says  to  the  combined  forces  of  Capital  and 
Labor,  flushed  with  past  successes  and  eager  for  the  conquest  of 
the  world:  "Halt!  you  are  on  the  wrong  road."  Business  is 
built  upon  stability  of  statutes.  Fluctuations  in  the  law  must 
not  be  a  factor  in  the  calculations  of  commerce.  It  is  fortunate 
for  the  future  of  the  country  that  the  President  has  taken  a 
position  so  radical  and  defiant  that  discussion  and  decision  are 
imperative.  If  the  result  is  as  I  think  it  will  and  ought  to  be — 
the  defeat  of  the  President  and  of  his  party — he  will  take  his 
place  among  the  few  eminent  specialists  and  experimentalists  who 
have  died  in  demonstrating  that  the  gun  was  not  loaded. 

During  a  quarter  of  a  century  of  passionate  nationality,  of 
free  labor,  of  protected  industries,  the  growth  of  the  Republic 
has  been  without  precedent  or  parallel  in  ancient  or  modern  times. 
Its  population  has  increased  at  the  rate  of  a  million  a  year,  and  a 
thousand  millions  per  annum  have  been  added  to  its  accumulated 
wealth.  It  has  paid  five-sixths  of  the  enormous  losses  of  the 
Civil  War;  it  has  borne  the  burden  of  a  gigantic  debt;  it  has 
spent  with  lavish  hand,  and  yet  has  saved  half  as  much  as  all  the 
rest  of  the  world.  With  sixty  thousand  millions  of  capital,  and 
a  developed  capacity   for  creating  a  product  worth  over  ten 


POLITICAL  MISSION  OF  UNITED  STATES  37 

billions  a  year,  its  political  mission  is,  as  far  as  possible,  to 
monopolize  its  home  market  in  the  materials  it  possesses  or  can 
manufacture,  to  cross  the  seas,  to  enter  all  ports  and  explore 
new  countries,  and  to  compete  with  the  most  advanced  nations 
in  all  the  markets  of  the  earth. 

Ninety-nine  years  ago,  on  the  fourth  day  of  July,  1789, 
George  Washington  signed  the  first  tariff  act  passed  by  the  young 
Republic.  Political  independence  had  been  proclaimed  by  the  im- 
mortal Declaration  of  1776,  but  the  country  was  still  dependent 
upon  Great  Britain  for  every  article  of  manufacture  in  metals  or 
fabrics.  With  more  gloomy  forebodings  than  those  caused  by 
the  separation  of  the  Empire  was  this*news  received  in  England. 
It  was  the  emancipation  of  raw  materials  and  the  birth  of  manu- 
factures in  the  United  States,  and  without  them  the  Republic  had 
no  "manifest  destiny."  At  the  close  of  an  exhausting  war,  with 
an  unpaid,  half -clothed,  and  riotous  army,  a  worthless  currency, 
shattered  credit,  and  an  empty  treasury,  Alexander  Hamilton, 
great  in  every  department  of  mental  activity,  but  the  greatest  of 
finance  ministers,  was  called  upon  to  provide  the  moneys  for 
carrying  on  the  Government,  meeting  its  obligations,  and  restor- 
ing its  credit.  In  a  report  whose  arguments  have  never  been 
answered  or  equaled,  he  gave,  as  a  solution  of  the  present  prob- 
lem and  a  future  prosperity,  protection  to  home  industries  as  a 
continuous  policy,  and  when  necessary,  bounties  and  premiums 
besides.  The  closing  year  of  the  century  of  Hamilton's  idea 
finds  thirteen  States  grown  to  thirty-eight,  four  millions  of  people 
increased  to  sixty,  and  nominal  national  wealth  to  sixty  billions. 
A  manufacturing  plant  not  worth  half  a  million  of  dollars  has 
expanded  until  its  annual  product  is  six  thousand  millions,  and 
the  consumption  per  year  by  our  own  people  of  the  output  of  our 
farms  and  our  factories  is  not  less  than  five  times  the  consolidated 
capital  of  1789.  From  an  increasing  indebtedness  to  foreign 
nations,  which  drained  all  our  resources,  the  returning  tide  of  the 
balance  of  trade  is  flowing  in  enriching  currents  through  every 
artery  of  our  industrial  life.  Upon  this  golden  monument,  with 
a  hundred  millions  of  surplus  in  the  national  treasury,  and  proud 
and  prosperous  populations  all  round,  the  culminating  century 
finds  President  Cleveland  proclaiming  with  equal  boldness,  if  less 
originality,  the  new  departure. 

The  celebration  of  the  birthday  of  the  Father  of  his  Country 


38  ORATIONS    AND   MEMORIAL   ADDRESSES 

recalls  at  this  juncture  the  peculiar  significance  of  the  language  of 
the  law  which  received  his  first  signature  as  President,  and  which 
had  his  heartiest  approval :  "Whereas  it  is  necessary  for  the  sup- 
port of  the  Government,  for  the  discharge  of  the  debts  of  the 
United  States,  and  the  encouragement  and  protection  of  manu- 
factures, that  duties  be  levied  on  goods,  wares,  and  merchandise 
imported."  Since  that  most  fruitful  legislation,  whenever  theory 
has  overcome  the  plain  teachings  of  practice,  the  penalty  has  been 
panics  and  distress.  "The  friend  of  the  many  against  the  profits 
of  the  few,"  is  the  seductive  role  which  captivates  the  free  trader, 
and  its  glittering  allurements  on  a  subject  new  to  his  thought  and 
studies  have  led  out  to  sea  the  strong  common-sense  of  Mr. 
Cleveland.  It  is  the  basis  of  the  policy  upon  which  he  has  staked 
his  own  fortunes  and  those  of  his  party.  "The  tariff  raises  the 
price  to  consumers,"  he  says,  "of  all  articles  imported  and  subject 
to  duty  by  precisely  the  sum  paid  for  such  duties";  and,  as  the 
consumers  are  enormously  in  excess  of  the  laborers  upon  purely 
protected  articles,  he  rushes  naturally  and  triumphantly  to  the 
conclusion  that  tariff  laws  are  "the  vicious,  inequitable,  and  illogi- 
cal source  of  unnecessary  taxation." 

In  1816,  1832,  1846,  the  weapons  which  the  President  found 
in  1888  won  great  victories,  but  like  Samson's  arms  about  the 
pillars  of  the  Temple,  the  result  involved  all  in  common  ruin. 
The  mill  closed,  the  furnace  fires  out,  the  farmer  bankrupt,  and 
the  laborer  a  tramp,  are  the  lurid  lessons  of  these  well-meant 
experiments  upon  a  delusive  theory  of  the  relations  of  the  factory 
to  the  farm. 

The  genius  of  our  scheme  of  general  government  and  the 
spirit  of  our  people  are  hostile  to  direct  taxation  for  national 
affairs.  The  federal  tax-gatherer  has  always  provoked  friction 
and  lawlessness,  even  under  the  necessities  of  war,  and  his 
presence  at  every  door  to  levy  and  take  three  times  the  amount 
required  by  the  State  for  home  and  local  wants  would  peril  both 
prosperity  and  loyalty.  Two  hundred  and  fifty  millions  of 
dollars  flow  into  the  national  treasury  annually,  and  under  the 
customs  system  of  collection  we  are  unconscious  of  our  burdens. 
It  is  only  the  necessities  of  war  which  justify  internal  revenue 
taxes,  and  only  a  concession  to  the  moral  sentiment  of  the  country 
which  permits  the  continuance  of  any  part  of  them.  No  revenue 
laws  are  perfect  or  permanent,  but  in  modifying  them  to  meet 


POLITICAL  MISSION  OF  UNITED  STATES  39 

the  changing  conditions  of  the  country  the  principle  of  ample 
protection  for  everything  which  can  be  successfully  produced  or 
manufactured  on  American  soil  must  be  maintained. 

The  factory  doubles  the  value  of  the  adjoining  farms  for  the 
farmers,  whose  tariff  exactions  are  too  small  to  be  calculated. 
Beside  the  mill  grows  the  village,  and  the  resistless  energies  of 
American  development  burst  the  village  bounds  and  build  the 
Western  city.  To  this  new  mart  the  railroad  is  constructed 
almost  with  the  speed  of  its  moving  trains,  and  the  quick  and 
cheap  communication  between  country  and  city  furnishes  new 
solvents  for  the  safety  in  the  prosperity  of  the  country.  Pro- 
tected opportunity  has  developed  our  incalculable  natural  re- 
sources and  enabled  us  to  manufacture  in  iron,  glass,  cotton,  and 
wool  as  well  as  any  nation  in  the  world,  and  more  cheaply,  save 
only  in  wages.  If  the  duty  on  importations  is  the  bounty  to 
labor  which  lifts  it  above  the  degrading  and  dangerous  conditions 
of  Europe,  and  enables  our  artisans  to  retain  their  self-respect 
and  independence,  it  is  the  Republic's  best  investment. 

Celebrating  here  to-day  the  one  hundred  and  fifty-sixth  anni- 
versary of  Washington's  birth,  and  recalling  the  influence  of  his 
victories  in  war,  his  counsels  in  convention,  his  acts  as  President 
of  the  Republic,  and  his  matchless  character,  the  visible  results  of 
the  policy  inaugurated  by  the  first  exercise  of  his  executive 
approval  are  the  most  marvelous.  The  purely  agricultural  States 
which  formed  his  confederacy  have  become  the  foremost  region 
of  the  world  in  the  variety,  the  usefulness,  and  the  volume  of  its 
manufactures,  and  the  fertility  of  its  inventive  genius.  Paying 
its  labor  fifty  per  cent,  more  than  the  rest  of  the  world,  it  produces 
the  food,  the  clothing,  and  the  household  effects  which  the  laborer 
uses,  cheaper  than  the  older  nations;  and  the  surplus  of  wages 
flowing  into  the  savings-banks  is  finally  invested  in  homes,  and 
in  the  multitude  of  homesteads  is  the  greatest  safety  of  Society 
and  the  State. 

The  United  States  is  the  granary,  the  workshop,  the  political 
hope  of  the  world.  It  can  largely  feed,  and  in  the  interchanges 
of  trade  supply  many  other  material  wants  of  the  peoples  who  are 
inspired  by  its  successful  liberty  to  strive  for  better  government 
and  nobler  lives.  Its  vast  network  of  railways,  its  lakes,  rivers, 
and  canals,  carry  a  commerce  of  incalculable  value,  and  its  surplus 
above  our  home  consumption  is  to  be  the  growing  element  of 


40  ORATIONS   AND   MEMORIAL  ADDRESSES 

our  national  wealth.  This  grand  product  is  freighted  in  foreign 
ships,  and  its  carriers  depend  for  their  profit  upon  the  enemies  of 
the  expansion  of  our  commerce.  I  said  to  a  representative  of  the 
new  steamship  line  which  is  to  make  the  link  across  the  Pacific 
of  the  route  from  the  East  over  the  American  Continent  and  to 
Europe — a  route  whose  possibilities  tax  the  imagination — "Why, 
instead  of  connecting  with  the  Canadian  Pacific  and  running 
through  Canada,  do  you  not  meet  our  transcontinental  system, 
making  Chicago  your  entrepot  and  distributing  point  for  the 
West  and  New  York  for  the  East?"  He  answered:  "Because 
we  would  lose  our  subsidy  of  three  hundred  thousand  dollars  a 
year  from  the  British  Government." 

In  that  answer  lay  the  secret  of  the  disappearance  of  the 
American  flag  from  the  ocean.  In  the  recognition  of  the  neces- 
sity for  a  commercial  nation  meeting  for  its  citizens  the  aid  given 
by  foreign  governments,  which  is  beyond  the  power  of  private 
enterprise,  is  the  potency  and  promise  of  American  trade  with 
the  world  and  of  the  old-time  supremacy  of  America  on  the  seas. 
The  new  conquest  will  give  to  us  the  commerce  of  South  America, 
and  wealth  beyond  the  dreams  of  Pizarro  and  the  Spanish  victors. 
It  will  follow  the  opening  of  the  African  continent ;  it  will  share 
in  the  riches  of  India  and  the  islands  of  the  East ;  our  shipyards 
will  be  the  centers  of  fruitful  industries  along  our  coasts,  and  our 
navy  once  more  our  boast,  our  protection,  and  our  pride. 

Last  summer  Victoria,  Queen  of  England  and  Empress  of 
India,  celebrated  with  imposing  ceremonial  the  fiftieth  anniver- 
sary of  her  reign.  The  world  never  witnessed  a  more  glittering 
pageant,  and  no  people  in  heralding  and  accompanying  the  proces- 
sion with  loyal  enthusiasm  and  ringing  acclaim  ever  viewed  a 
half-century  of  retrospect  with  loftier  pride.  The  Queen,  as 
sovereign  and  woman,  commanded  their  devotion,  respect,  and 
love,  but  nowhere  in  that  splendid  procession  appeared  the  witness 
for  the  triumphs  of  the  people  which  will  be  remembered  as  the 
chief  glory  of  her  reign.  Subject  princes  from  India,  whose 
ancestors  had  faced  Alexander  of  Macedon,  and  tributary  sove- 
reigns from  Asia  and  Africa  and  the  Islands  of  the  Sea  exhibited 
the  conquests  of  English  arms  and  the  world-circling  supremacy 
of  the  British  flag.  Representatives  of  the  reigning  houses  of 
the  monarchies  of  Europe  testified  to  her  royal  lineage  and 
inherited  rights,  and  the  medieval  pomp  and  chivalry  brought  the 


*  %J     OF   THE  \ 

UNIVERSITY    I 

FOgg^OTICAL  MISSION  OF  UNITED  STATES  41 

spirit  of  feudalism  into  vivid  contrast  with  the  glorious  sunlight 
of  the  nineteenth  century. 

At  the  same  time,  in  Philadelphia,  the  United  States  was 
celebrating  the  hundredth  anniversary  of  the  life  of  its  Consti- 
tution. The  most  ancient  and  venerable  relic  of  the  past  in  its 
procession  was  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  emblazoning 
every  banner  with  the  motto :  "We  hold  these  truths  to  be  self- 
evident,  that  all  men  are  created  equal ;  that  they  are  endowed  by 
their  Creator  with  certain  inalienable  rights;  that  among  these 
are  life,  liberty,  and  the  pursuit  of  happiness" ;  and  next  in  order 
of  age  and  sanctity  was  the  Constitution,  the  charter  of  our 
Government,  commencing  with  the  immortal  axiom  of  repre- 
sentative liberty :  "We,  the  people  of  the  United  States."  In  our 
ceremonial  were  the  mammoth  printing-presses,  the  locomotive, 
the  steamship,  the  steam-engine,  the  telegraph,  trained  lightning 
in  its  manifold  forms  of  usefulness;  the  inventions  and  their 
marvelous  and  beneficent  powers,  the  arts  in  their  development 
and  perfection;  the  schoolhouse  and  the  university;  the  hardy 
pioneer,  the  retreating  savage,  the  wilderness,  the  settlement,  the 
farms  and  rich  harvests,  the  village,  the  city  with  its  magic 
growth  and  wondrous  industries ;  and,  pervading  the  pageant,  the 
political  ideal  of  man,  panoplied  with  American  liberty,  and 
responsible  and  obedient  only  to  God  and  the  law. 

"Westward  the  course  of  empire  takes  its  way; 

The  four  first  acts  already  past, 
A  fifth  shall  close  the  drama  with  the  day; 
Time's  noblest  offspring  is  the  last." 

As  the  human  race  has  moved  along  down  the  centuries,  the 
vigorous  and  ambitious,  the  dissenters  from  blind  obedience  and 
the  original  thinkers,  the  colonists  and  state-builders,  have  broken 
camp  with  the  morning,  and  followed  the  sun  until  the  close  of 
day.  They  have  tarried  for  ages  in  fertile  valleys  and  beside 
great  streams ;  they  have  been  retarded  by  barriers  of  mountains 
and  seas  beyond  their  present  resources  to  overcome;  but  as  the 
family  grew  into  the  tribe,  the  tribe  into  the  nation,  and  equal 
authority  into  the  despotism  of  courts  and  creeds,  those  who 
possessed  the  indomitable  and  unconquerable  spirit  of  freedom 
have  seen  the  promise  flashed  from  the  clouds  in  the  glorious  rays 
of  the  sinking  orb  of  day,  and  first  with  despair  and  courage,  and 


42  ORATIONS   AND   MEMORIAL   ADDRESSES 

then  with  courage  and  hope,  and  lastly  with  faith  and  prayer, 
they  have  marched  Westward.  In  the  purification  and  trials  of 
wandering  and  settlement  they  have  left  behind  narrow  and  de- 
grading laws,  traditions,  customs,  and  castes,  until  now,  as  the 
Occident  faces  the  Orient  across  the  Pacific,  and  the  globe  is 
circled,  at  the  last  stop  and  in  their  permanent  home  the  individual 
is  the  basis  of  governffi'ent,  and  all  men  are  equal  before  the  law. 
The  glorious  example  of  the  triumphant  success  of  the  people 
governing  themselves  fans  the  feeble  spirit  of  the  effete  and. 
exhausted  Asiatic  with  the  possibilities  of  the  replanting  of  the 
Garden  of  Eden  and  of  the  restoration  of  the  historic  grandeur 
of  the  birthplace  of  mankind.  It  is  putting  behind  every  bayonet 
carried  at  the  order  of  Bismarck  or  the  Czar  men  who,  in 
doing  their  own  thinking,  will  one  day  decide  for  themselves 
the  problems  of  peace  and  war.  It  will  penetrate  the  breeding- 
places  of  Anarchy  and  Socialism,  and  cleanse  and  purify  them. 

The  scenes  of  the  fifth  act  of  the  grand  drama  are  changing, 
with  the  world  as  its  stage,  and  all  races  and  tongues  the  audience. 
And  yet,  as  it  culminates  in  power,  and  grandeur,  and  absorbing 
interest,  the  attention  remains  riveted  upon  one  majestic  charac- 
ter. He  stands  the  noblest  leader  who  was  ever  intrusted  with  a 
country's  life.  His  patience  under  provocation,  his  calmness  in 
danger  and  lofty  courage  when  all  others  despaired,  his  prudent 
delays  when  the  Continental  Congress  was  imperative  and  the 
Staff  almost  insubordinate,  and  his  quick  and  resistless  blows 
when  action  was  possible,  his  magnanimity  to  his  defamers  and 
generosity  to  his  foes,  his  ambition  for  his  country  and  unselfish- 
ness for  himself,  his  sole  desire  the  freedom  and  independence 
of  America,  and  his  only  wish  to  return  after  victory  to  private 
life  and  the  peaceful  pursuits  and  pleasures  of  home,  have  all 
combined  to  make  him,  by  the  unanimous  judgment  of  the  world, 
the  foremost  figure  in  history.  Not  so  abnormally  developed 
in  any  direction  as  to  be  called  a  genius,  yet  he  was  the  strongest 
because  the  best  balanced,  the  fullest  rounded,  the  most  even  and 
most  self-masterful  of  men — the  incarnation  of  common  sense 
and  moral  purity,  of  action  and  repose. 

The  Republic  will  live  so  long  as  it  reveres  the  memory  and 
emulates  the  virtues  of  George  Washington. 


HAMILTON'S  STATUE 


ADDRESS  AT  THE  UNVEILING  OF  THE  STATUE  OF  ALEXANDER 
HAMILTON,  IN  CENTRAL  PARK,  NEW  YORK,  NOVEMBER  22, 
l880. 

Fellow-Citizens:  The  cosmopolitan  spirit  of  our  city  is 
attested  by  the  monuments  erected  in  this  park  by  the  pride  and 
patriotism  of  other  nationalities  and  States  to  commemorate  the 
men  whose  genius  and  works  belong  to  them,  but  are  equally 
honored  by  us.  The  time  has  long  since  passed,  when  to  this 
glorious  group  should  have  been  added  the  statue  of  New  York's 
greatest  gift  to  the  Revolutionary  period  and  the  constitutional 
history  of  the  Republic.  The  filial  piety  of  a  son  performs  the 
work,  and  we  are  here  to  honor  the  deed,  and  venerate  the  memory 
of  his  distinguished  father. 

Precocious  intellects  in  all  ages  of  the  world  have  flashed 
with  meteoric  splendor,  and  for  a  brief  space  amazed  mankind; 
but  he  only  whose  full-equipped  mind  knew  no  youth  and  never 
failed  in  the  full  maturity  of  its  powers  was  Alexander  Hamilton. 
At  twelve  years  of  age,  a  merchant's  clerk,  he  writes :  "I  would 
willingly  risk  my  life,  though  not  my  character,  to  exalt  my 
station."  At  thirteen  he  was  the  responsible  head  of  a  great 
commercial  establishment,  controlling  the  details  of  the  counting- 
room,  managing  its  ventures  with  distant  countries,  and  main- 
taining its  credit.  At  fifteen,  he  stands  before  the  venerable 
President  of  Princeton  College,  with  the  bold  proposition  to  be 
permitted  to  ascend  through  the  classes  as  he  mastered  their 
courses,  and  to  be  graduated  without  regard  to  the  years  allotted 
by  the  rules,  when  he  could  pass  an  examination.  The  conserva- 
tism of  Princeton  rejects,  and  Columbia,  then  King's  College, 
accepts  the  youthful  student  upon  his  own  terms.  With  rare 
industry  and  application,  with  method  and  wisdom,  he  seeks 
every  source  of  knowledge  and  rapidly  absorbs  and  assimilates 
all  the  teachings  of  the  schools. 

But  while  he  meditates  in  the  groves  of  the  Academy,  the 
thunders  of  the  mighty  revolution  which  was  shaking  the  conti- 

43 


44  ORATIONS   AND   MEMORIAL   ADDRESSES 

nent  disturb  the  quiet  of  the  lecture-room.  The  protracted 
struggle  of  the  colonists  with  the  Mother  Country  for  peaceful 
recognition  of  their  rights  was  approaching  a  crisis.  The  tea 
had  been  thrown  into  Boston  Harbor,  and  the  retaliatory 
measures  of  the  Home  Government  impressed  upon  the  colonies 
the  necessity  of  all  uniting  in  the  common  defense.  A  great 
meeting  was  called  in  the  fields  by  the  patriots  of  this  city. 
When  the  orators  had  closed  their  passionate  appeals,  a  slender 
lad  of  seventeen  ascended  the  platform.  Curiosity  soon  gave 
place  to  admiration,  and  admiration  to  amazement  and  enthusi- 
astic applause,  as  the  boy  proceeded.  Calmly  and  clearly,  with 
resistless  reason  and  vivid  imagery,  he  portrayed  the  origin  of 
the  difficulties,  the  rights  guaranteed  by  their  charters,  by  Magna 
Charta  and  the  English  Constitution,  but  above  all  the  inalienable 
liberties  of  every  people,  and  showed  the  possibilities  of  success- 
ful resistance  by  united  effort.  New  York  decided  to  send  dele- 
gates to  the  Continental  Congress,  and  Hamilton  began  that  struc- 
ture of  American  nationality,  of  which  he  was  the  main  archi- 
tect, and  to  whose  perfection  and  perpetuity  he  devoted  his  life. 

A  resort  to  arms  had  not  yet  closed  the  forum,  and  to  the 
discussion  came  the  best  trained,  the  ablest,  the  most  eloquent 
men  of  New  York,  pleading  the  cause  of  England  in  pamphlets 
remarkable  for  their  power,  and  which  stayed  the  course  and 
shook  the  judgment  of  the  people.  But  the  replies  were  so 
brilliant  and  overwhelming  that  they  consolidated  public  senti- 
ment for  the  cause  of  the  people,  and  were  ascribed  to  the  fore- 
most statesmen  of  the  period;  and  upon  the  discovery  of  their 
author,  Hamilton,  at  eighteen,  was  hailed  by  the  whole  country 
as  the  peer  of  the  Adamses  and  of  Jay.  But  when  the  multitude, 
smarting  under  wrongs  and  fired  by  the  eloquence  of  their  cham- 
pion, sought  riotous  vengeance  upon  their  enemies,  he  stayed  the 
angry  mob  while  the  President  of  his  college  escaped,  and  offered 
to  lead  in  defense  of  property  and  the  majesty  of  the  law. 
Popular  passion  never  swayed  his  judgment;  personal  ambition, 
or  the  applause  of  the  hour,  never  moved  or  deterred  him.  The 
same  intuitive  insight  and  foresight,  which  worked  out  for  him 
his  own  course  and  position,  recognized  and  protected  the  rights  of 
his  bitterest  foes.     Concord  and  Lexington  closed  the  argument. 

He  saw  the  necessity  and  rightfulness  of  armed  resistance, 
and,  with  clearest  reasoning  upon  the  character  of  the  combatants 


HAMILTON'S  STATUE  45 

and  the  nature  of  the  country,  predicted  its  success.  While  others 
fought  for  terms,  he  from  the  beginning  fought  for  independence. 
With  the  remnant  of  his  little  fortune  he  equipped  a  company,  and 
the  Board  of  Examining  Officers,  in  admiration  of  his  proficiency 
in  the  science  of  war,  commissioned  the  stripling  a  Captain  of  Ar- 
tillery, and  complimented  the  discipline  of  his  command.  In  an 
anonymous  letter  which  he  wrote  to  Washington  he  pointed  out 
the  dangers  of  the  position  on  Long  Island,  and  the  warning  was 
justified  by  the  disastrous  battle  and  retreat.  His  coolness  and 
intrepidity  at  Harlem  Heights  attracted  the  notice  and  comment 
of  the  Commander-in-Chief,  and  his  skill  and  bravery  at  White 
Plains  stayed  the  onset  of  the  veteran  and  victorious  Hessians. 
In  an  age  when  commissions  in  the  army  were  secured  only  by 
noble  birth  or  by  purchase,  he  struck  the  keynote  of  the  inspiration 
of  a  volunteer  force,  by  recommending  promotion  from  the  ranks 
with  such  vigor  that  his  advice  was  adopted  by  Congress.  During 
the  gloomy  retreat  through  New  Jersey,  a  veteran  officer  noticed 
a  company  "which  was  a  model  of  discipline ;  its  Captain  a  mere 
boy,  with  small,  slender,  and  delicate  frame,  who,  with  cocked 
hat  pulled  down  over  his  eyes,  and  apparently  lost  in  thought, 
marched  beside  a  cannon,  patting  it  every  now  and  then  as  if  it 
were  a  favorite  horse  or  pet  plaything,"  and  was  surprised  when 
told  it  was  the  famous  Hamilton.  But  the  young  officer  held 
the  British  at  bay  while  the  American  army  crossed  the  Raritan, 
and  at  Princeton  and  Trenton  his  company  won  renown  and  left 
upon  the  field  three-fourths  of  their  number. 

From  the  line,  with  its  opportunities  for  distinction  and 
promotion,  the  necessities  of  the  Commander-in-Chief  drafted 
Hamilton  into  his  military  family,  and  at  twenty  he  became  the 
confidential  aide  of  Washington.  How  fortunate  and  providen- 
tial was  this  conjunction!  The  reverence  of  the  secretary  for 
the  majestic  character,  lofty  patriotism,  and  full,  rounded 
judgment  of  his  chief,  was  reciprocated  by  the  confidence  and 
admiration  of  the  chief  for  the  genius,  thoroughness,  readiness, 
comprehensive  knowledge,  intuitive  perception,  and  purity  of  his 
secretary.  The  one  began,  the  other  instantly  grasped  the  con- 
clusion. The  brief  statement  of  the  one  became  the  convincing 
argument  of  the  other.  The  suggestive  hint  of  the  evening  was 
presented  for  signature  as  the  completed  and  unanswerable  argu- 
ment of  the  morning.    Washington  pointed  the  way,  and  Hamil- 


46  ORATIONS   AND   MEMORIAL   ADDRESSES 

ton  cleared  and  paved  the  broad  road  upon  which  Congress,  or  the 
army,  or  the  hesitating  State,  must  travel.  The  responsibilities 
of  the  continent,  in  field  and  cabinet,  rested  upon  Washington; 
but  Hamilton  grasped,  assimilated,  codified  principles,  and  simpli- 
fied details,  so  that  in  the  vast  and  complicated  system  nothing 
was  neglected  or  forgotten,  and  the  friendship  cemented  and 
strengthened  with  years  ended  only  in  death.  It  was  a  fitting 
and  picturesque  close  of  the  Revolutionary  War  that,  when  the 
combinations  of  Washington  had  hemmed  in  Cornwallis  at  York- 
town,  Hamilton  should  lead  the  forlorn  hope  in  the  storming  of 
the  British  redoubt,  and,  firing  his  soldiers  to  the  charge  by  the 
memory  of  the  massacre  of  their  comrades  at  New  London,  in 
the  heat  and  passion  of  victory  grant  mercy  to  the  vanquished. 
Independence  left  the  Republic  with  but  the  shadow  of  a 
government.  Congress  possessed  only  advisory  powers,  and,  in 
its  inability  to  enforce  its  decrees  upon  the  States,  became  an 
object  of  contempt  at  home  and  ridicule  abroad.  It  was  then 
that  Hamilton  brought  forth  his  exhaustless  resources  to  consoli- 
date a  nation.  The  first  Convention  proved  a  failure,  but  its 
address  to  the  country,  prepared  by  him,  aroused  the  fears  and 
stirred  the  patriotism  of  the  people.  The  second  Convention, 
presided  over  by  Washington,  numbered  among  its  members  the 
ablest  men  of  the  infant  Republic.  Hamilton  presented  for  their 
deliberations  a  system  complete  in  all  its  parts.  He  had  seen  the 
war  for  independence  prolonged,  and  at  times  almost  lost,  by 
the  failure  of  centralized  authority  and  the  jealousies  of  the 
States,  and  he  proposed  that  the  great  empire,  whose  future  was 
as  clear  to  his  vision  as  its  reality  is  to  ours,  should  recognize  the 
federative  principle  in  home  and  local  affairs;  but  be  clothed 
with  powers  to  preserve  the  union  of  the  States  and  command 
the  respect  of  the  world.  State  Sovereignty  assailed  the  prop- 
osition in  every  part,  but  out  of  the  discussion  was  saved 
the  Constitution  which  has  survived  the  storms  of  a  cen- 
tury. Its  preamble,  written  by  him,  "We,  the  People  of  the 
United  States,"  was  the  foundation  of  his  policy.  An  over- 
whelming majority  of  the  New  York  Convention,  led  by  her  War 
Governor,  George  Clinton,  opposed  its  ratification;  but  Hamil- 
ton, by  resistless  logic,  impassioned  eloquence,  and  lofty  appeals 
to  the  pride  and  patriotism  of  its  members,  silenced  opposition, 
quieted  prejudices,  and  won  the  assent  of  our  State  to  the  great 


HAMILTON'S  STATUE  47 

compact;  and,  with  rapturous  applause,  with  processions  and 
addresses,  the  people,  whom  he  had  educated  by  The  Federalist, 
the  press,  and  his  speeches,  to  a  desire  for  a  common  country, 
hailed  him  as  the  savior  of  the  nation.  Hamilton  forged  the 
links  and  welded  the  chain  which  binds  the  Union.  He  saw  the 
dangers  of  secession,  and  pointed  out  the  remedy  against  it  in  the 
implied  powers  of  the  Constitution.  When  Pennsylvania  rebelled 
against  the  Excise  Law,  he  said :  "Let  there  be  no  temporizing, 
but  crush  the  insurrection  with  such  overwhelming  force  and 
display  of  power  that  it  will  never  be  repeated."  Upon  the 
foundation  laid  by  Hamilton,  Webster  built  his  majestic  structure 
of  constitutional  law,  and  the  principles  so  established  silenced 
nullification,  vindicated  the  right  of  the  Republic  to  protect  its 
life  by  arms,  and  reconstructed  the  States. 

This  young  soldier,  whose  life  had  passed  in  camps,  dropped 
the  practice  of  law  at  the  moment  when  eminence  and  wealth 
were  in  his  grasp,  to  obey  the  call  of  Washington,  and  at  thirty- 
two  became  the  first  Secretary  of  the  Treasury.  The  Republic 
was  bankrupt  and  without  credit,  commerce  was  destroyed,  trade 
paralyzed,  agriculture  neglected,  and  public  distress  and  private 
poverty  were  the  attendants  of  despair.  He  so  constructed  the 
Treasury  Department  that  it  has  needed  but  little  revision  during 
ninety  years.  He  created  a  system  of  finance  which  restored 
credit  and  sent  the  life-blood  throbbing  through  every  artery  of 
the  body  politic.  The  demagogue  cried:  Pay  the  obligation  of 
the  Government  at  the  nominal  price  for  which  it  is  offered  in 
the  market,  and  the  misery  of  the  unthinking  echoed  the  cry ;  but 
this  statesman  said:  "Let  the  letter  and  the  spirit  of  the  bond 
be  met,"  and  prosperity  trod  upon  the  heels  of  honesty.  He 
alone  knew  the  secrets  whose  publicity  enriched  multitudes,  and 
yet  he  retired  from  office  to  earn  a  living.  Upon  the  boundless 
sea  of  experiment  without  chart  or  compass,  he  invented  both. 
He  smote  the  sources  of  revenue  with  such  skill  and  power,  that 
from  the  barren  rocks  flowed  the  streams  which  filled  the  Treas- 
ury and  the  Sinking  Fund,  and  the  exhausted  land  was  fertilized 
by  its  own  productiveness. 

Out  of  chaos  he  developed  perfected  schemes  which  have 
stood  every  strain  and  met  every  emergency  in  our  national  life. 
From  his  tent  at  Morristown  he  suggested  to  the  bewildered 
Morris,  who  was  seeking  funds  to  sustain  the  Revolution,  a  plan 


48  ORATIONS   AND   MEMORIAL   ADDRESSES 

of  a  National  Banking  System  which  he  completed  as  Secretary 
of  the  Treasury,  and  which,  after  many  vicissitudes  and  with 
some  modifications,  has  met  the  exigencies  created  by  civil  war, 
and  is  the  basis  upon  which  rests  our  whole  structure  of  public 
and  private  business.  He  saw  the  necessity  for  manufactures, 
and  the  possibility  of  their  creation  and  growth  by  judicious 
protection,  and  laid  down  the  principles  which  succeeding  states- 
men and  publicists  have  accepted,  but  never  enlarged.  When 
the  orgies  of  the  French  Revolution  maddened  Europe  and  intoxi- 
cated America,  and  in  the  name  of  universal  Republicanism 
France  demanded  an  offensive  and  defensive  alliance,  he  stemmed 
the  popular  current,  prophesied  that  license  would  end  in  despot- 
ism, and  established  the  great  rule  of  neutrality  which  has  been 
the  guiding  and  protecting  spirit  of  our  foreign  policy. 

Having  spent  his  patrimony  in  the  war,  the  care  of  his  family 
called  for  his  best  exertions.  So  great  was  the  concentration  of 
his  industry  and  the  comprehensiveness  of  his  mind,  that  in  three 
months  he  mastered  the  law,  and  entered  at  once  upon  a  lucrative 
practice.  So  great  was  his  public  spirit  that  he  abandoned  it  to 
perfect  the  Federal  Constitution,  resumed,  and  again  left  it  to 
secure  the  ratification  of  that  instrument ;  closed  his  books  a  third 
time  when  summoned  by  Washington  into  his  Cabinet,  and  locked 
his  office  a  fourth  time  to  organize  an  army  to  resist  threatened 
war  and  invasion  of  the  country. 

Amidst  the  universal  prosperity  created  by  his  wisdom  and 
measures,  private  needs  compelled  his  resignation,  and  he  entered 
upon  the  brief,  but  most  brilliant,  professional  career  in  the  illus- 
trious history  of  the  Bar  in  our  State.  With  all-embracing 
genius,  the  most  plodding  lawyer  was  never  better  fortified  with 
case  and  precedent.  With  tireless  energy  he  traced  principles 
back  to  their  sources  and  forward  to  their  conclusions.  Enrap- 
tured juries  were  swayed  by  his  eloquence,  and  admiring  judges 
convinced  by  his  arguments.  He  so  settled  the  law  of  libel  and  the 
liberty  of  the  press,  that  his  brief  became  part  of  the  constitutions 
of  States  and  the  statutes  of  England.  The  accused,  who  was 
too  poor  to  retain  and  too  humble  to  arouse  the  ambition  of  a 
lawyer,  found  both  advocate  and  acquittal  in  Hamilton.  The 
needy  client,  whose  little  patrimony  and  family  he  had  saved, 
could  pay  no  fee  but  grateful  tears.  That  he  was  human  and 
committed  errors  is  the  background  which  brings  out  in  bolder 


HAMILTON'S  STATUE  49 

relief  the  simplicity  and  integrity  of  his  character  and  the  great- 
ness of  his  mind.  Talleyrand,  walking  up  Garden  Street  in  this 
city  late  at  night,  and  seeing  him  at  work  in  his  office,  said :  "I 
have  seen  one  of  the  wonders  of  the  world.  I  have  seen  a  man 
laboring  all  night  to  support  his  family,  who  has  made  the  for- 
tune of  a  nation."  This  great  critic  and  cynic  said :  "I  consider 
Napoleon,  Fox,  and  Hamilton  the  three  greatest  men  of  our 
epoch,  and  without  hesitation  I  award  the  first  place  to  Hamil- 
ton." To  the  objection  that  the  others  had  dealt  with  greater 
masses  and  larger  interests  in  Europe,  Talleyrand  replied:  "But 
Hamilton  divined  Europe." 

The  period  was  rich  in  precocious  intellects,  but  Hamilton's 
superiority  was  in  strength  of  thought  and  vigor  of  expression, 
in  the  consistency  and  honesty  of  his  convictions,  the  unselfish- 
ness of  his  purposes,  and  his  marvelous  versatility.  He  brushed 
aside  prejudice  and  preconceived  opinions,  and  from  impregnable 
foundations  his  reasonings  had  the  strength  of  inspiration  and 
the  spirit  of  prophecy.  He  dwelt  upon  the  problem  of  internal 
commerce,  and  suggested  the  Erie  Canal.  He  thought  out  a 
standing  army,  and  founded  West  Point.  He  saw  the  necessity 
of  popular  education  and  the  plain  duty  of  the  State,  and  per- 
fected that  grand  and  comprehensive  system,  free  from  sectarian 
control  or  influence,  which  is  the  pride  of  New  York  and  has 
been  a  model  of  reform  in  foreign  countries.  The  glory  of  our 
time  is  the  emancipation  of  the  slave,  and  yet  he  advised  the 
arming  and  freeing  of  the  blacks  in  the  Revolutionary  War  as  a 
measure  of  wisdom  and  philanthropy.  When  informed  of  the 
death  of  Washington,  he  burst  into  tears  and  fell  into  the  arms 
of  a  friend,  crying:  "The  Republic  has  lost  its  saviour  and  I  a 
father."  His  last  message  was :  "For  God's  sake,  cease  conver- 
sations and  threatenings  about  a  separation  of  the  Union."  His 
dying  words  were  of  forgiveness  to  his  murderer  and  his  enemies, 
and  of  a  confident  trust  in  salvation  through  the  mercy  of  the 
Redeemer.  The  Republic,  recovering  from  grief  at  the  loss  of 
Washington  by  the  reflection  that  Hamilton  lived  in  the  meridian 
of  his  powers,  was  plunged  into  universal  sorrow  by  his  untimely 
end.  But  the  fears  which  agitated  that  generation,  lest  the  disso- 
lution of  the  Union  might  follow  the  death  of  this  great  bulwark 
of  nationality,  have  blended,  in  our  time,  into  gratitude  and 
reverence  for  the  founder  of  the  Constitution, 
Vol,  1—4 


CAPTURE  OF  ANDRE 


ORATION  AT  THE  CENTENNIAL  CELEBRATION  OF  THE  CAPTURE  OF 
MAJOR  ANDRE,  AT  TARRYTOWN,  N.Y.,  SEPTEMBER  23,   l88o. 

One  hundred  years  ago  the  sun  rose  upon  the  same  beautiful 
landscape  which  surrounds  us  here  to-day.  The  noble  Hudson 
rolled  in  front;  to  the  north  were  the  Highlands,  in  their  majesty 
and  strength;  on  the  west  towered  the  mountains  enclosing  the 
bay,  and  on  the  east  spread  valleys  and  hills  celebrated  then,  as 
now,  for  their  picturesqueness  and  commanding  views.  Beyond 
the  loveliness  of  the  situation  it  had  no  greater  claims  upon  the 
attention  of  the  world  than  hundreds  of  places  adorned  by  nature 
which  have  made  our  State  celebrated  for  the  beauty  and  variety 
of  its  scenery ;  but  when  the  sun  went  down  this  spot  had  become 
one  of  the  fields  priceless  in  the  memory  of  mankind,  where  virtue 
is  vindicated,  and  civilization  and  liberty  saved  from  great 
disaster.  The  story  we  repeat  here  has  equal  value  as  a  lesson 
to  the  living  and  a  reverent  tribute  to  the  memory  of  the  dead. 

History,  traditions,  legends  forgotten,  almost  lost,  in  the 
rapid  march  of  events  and  the  wonderful  development  of  material 
prosperity,  are  so  revived  by  these  commemorations  that  our 
county,  richer  than  any  other  in  the  commonwealth  in  Revolu- 
tionary recollections,  becomes  in  every  part  a  perpetual  teacher 
of  the  labors  and  sacrifices  of  patriotism  to  secure  our  inde- 
pendence. 

The  happiness  and  progress  of  mankind  have  as  often  been 
advanced  or  retarded  by  small  events  as  by  great  battles.  If  the 
three  hundred  men  with  Leonidas  stemmed  the  Persian  torrent, 
and  made  Thermopylae  the  inspiration  of  twenty  centuries,  right 
here  a  century  ago  to-day  three  plain  farmers  of  Westchester 
preserved  the  liberties  of  the  American  people. 

It  is  hard,  even  in  imagination,  to  understand  now  the  condi- 
tion of  this  region  at  that  period.  Ominously  known  as  the 
neutral  ground,  it  was  marauded  and  harried  by  Royal  and  Conti- 
nental soldiers  and  by  Skinners  and  Cowboys,  robbers  and 
brigands  of  equal  infamy.  The  Whig  farmer  saw  his  cattle 
driven  off  and  the  flames  of  his  buildings  lighting  the  sky  to-night, 

50 


CAPTURE  OF  ANDRE  51 

and  mercilessly  retaliated  upon  his  Tory  neighbor  to-morrow. 
Fences  were  down,  fruit  rotted  ungathered  on  the  ground,  rank 
vegetation  covered  the  unsown  fields,  and  the  gaunt  and  vengeful 
citizen  guarded  with  ready  musket  his  family  and  hidden  stores, 
or  watched  in  ambuscade  by  the  wayside  to  recapture  his  stolen 
property  or  prevent  the  delivery  of  foraged  stores  to  the  enemy. 
Amidst  such  experiences  and  surroundings  the  captors  of  Andre 
passed  their  daily  lives. 

September,  1780,  was  a  gloomy  and  anxious  time  for  Wash- 
ington and  Congress.  Charleston  had  fallen,  and  Gates  had  been 
disastrously  defeated.  With  the  rout  of  his  army  the  whole 
South  had  come  under  the  enemy's  control.  New  Jersey  was 
overrun,  and  twenty  thousand  men,  veterans  of  European  battle- 
fields, were  gathered  in  New  York.  The  French  fleet  had  sailed 
away,  a  large  reinforcement  to  the  British  navy  had  arrived,  and 
Washington's  cherished  plan  of  a  demonstration  against  the  city 
had  to  be  abandoned.  The  only  American  force  worthy  the 
name  of  an  army,  numbering  fewer  than  twelve  thousand,  suffer- 
ing from  long  arrears  of  pay,  without  money  to  send  to  their 
starving  families,  and  deficient  in  supplies,  was  encamped  at  and 
about  West  Point.  This  critical  moment  was  selected  by  Arnold, 
with  devilish  sagacity,  to  strike  his  deadly  blow.  Elated  by  the 
success  which  had  crowned  his  earlier  efforts,  he  plunged  into 
excesses  which  left  him  without  a  command,  bankrupt  in  fortune, 
and  smarting  under  the  reprimand  of  Congress.  He  still  re- 
tained the  confidence  of  Washington,  and  anxious  to  secure  the 
largest  price  for  his  treason,  applied  for  and  obtained  the  com- 
mand of  West  Point.  The  surrender  of  this  post,  controlling 
the  passes  of  the  Hudson,  with  its  war  materials  vital  to  the 
maintenance  of  the  patriot  army,  and  its  garrison  of  four  thous- 
and troops,  together  with  the  person  of  Washington,  would  end, 
in  his  judgment,  the  war,  and  give  him  a  place  second  only  to 
Monk  in  English  history. 

The  success  or  failure  of  the  united  colonies  in  forming  an 
independent  government  depended,  from  the  beginning  to  the  end 
of  the  contest,  on  the  State  of  New  York.  Within  her  boun- 
daries are  the  natural  channels  by  which  the  Six  Nations  marched 
to  savage  empire;  through  which  the  English  broke  the  French 
power  on  this  continent,  and  by  means  of  which  emigration  and 
commerce  have  peopled  and  enriched  great  States.     A  British 


52  ORATIONS   AND   MEMORIAL   ADDRESSES 

statesman  and  soldier  said :  "Fortify  from  Canada  to  the  city  of 
New  York,  and  we  can  hold  the  colonies  together."  The  British 
Cabinet  and  generals  said:  "Capture  and  place  a  chain  of  posts 
along  the  route  from  New  York  city  to  Canada,  and  we  can  crush 
rebellious  New  England  and  awe  all  the  rest  into  submission." 
The  battle  of  Saratoga  and  surrender  of  Burgoyne  defeated  the 
last  and  most  formidable  attempt  to  accomplish  this  result  by 
arms.  Upon  its  bloody  field  American  independence  was  con- 
summated. That  grand  victory,  which  gave  us  unity  at  home 
and  recognition  abroad,  was  largely  due  to  the  skill,  the  dash, 
the  intrepid  valor  of  Arnold. 

The  issue  in  that  conflict  decided  the  control  of  the  passes  of 
the  Hudson,  and  all  which  would  follow  was  now  to  be  reopened 
and  reversed  by  treason — and  the  traitor  the  same  Arnold.  For 
eighteen  months  a  correspondence  opened  by  Arnold  had  been 
carried  on  between  him  and  Major  Andre,  acting  for  Sir  Henry 
Clinton.  He  wrote  over  the  signature  of  Gustavus,  seeking  a 
bid  for  his  defection,  and  occasionally  imparting  valuable  infor- 
mation to  indicate  his  importance.  Andre  replied  under  the 
name  of  John  Anderson,  testing  and  tempting.  These  letters, 
molded  in  the  vocabulary  of  trade,  and  treating  of  the  barter  and 
sale  of  cattle  and  goods,  were  really  haggling  about  the  price  of 
the  betrayal  of  the  liberties  of  America  and  a  human  soul.  The 
time  had  come  for  action,  and  the  British  must  be  satisfied  as  to 
the  identity  of  their  man  and  the  firmness  of  his  purpose,  and 
commit  him  beyond  the  possibility  of  retreat.  "For,"  said  Sir 
Henry  Clinton,  "we  propose  to  risk  no  lives  upon  the  possibilities 
of  deceit  or  failure."  The  first  meeting  appointed  at  Dobbs' 
Ferry,  on  the  12th  of  September,  failed,  and  Arnold  came  near 
being  captured.  With  rare  audacity  he  reported  his  visit  at  once 
to  Washington,  and  the  next  day  wrote  a  letter  to  General  Greene 
expressing  bitter  indignation  against  Gates  for  his  Southern 
defeat,  and  the  apprehension  that  it  would  leave  an  indelible  stain 
upon  his  reputation. 

Armed  with  a  decoy  letter  from  Beverly  Robinson,  ostensibly 
about  his  confiscated  lands,  really  conveying  information  where 
an  interview  with  Andre  might  be  had,  he  met  Washington,  on 
his  way  to  see  Rochambeau  at  Hartford,  carried  him  across  the 
river  at  Verplanck's  Point  in  his  barge,  and  asked  permission  to 
go,  but  the  chief  declined,  saying  the  matter  had  better  be  left 


CAPTURE  OF  ANDRE  53 

to  the  civil  authorities.  An  overruling  Providence  was  protect- 
ing the  patriot  cause  and  weaving  about  the  plot  the  elements  of 
its  exposure  and  destruction.  Baffled,  but  not  disheartened, 
Arnold,  lurking  in  the  bushes  of  the  Long  Clove  below  Haver- 
straw,  sent  a  boat  at  midnight  to  the  Vulture  to  bring  Andre  to 
the  shore.  The  boatmen,  roughly  handled  on  the  sloop-of-war 
for  daring  to  approach  her  without  a  flag  of  truce,  are  hurried 
before  Andre  and  explain  their  mission.  Covering  his  uniform 
with  a  cloak  he  determined  to  accompany  them.  The  caution  of 
Sir  Henry  Clinton  not  to  go  within  the  American  lines,  not  to 
cover  his  uniform,  not  to  be  the  bearer  of  any  papers,  rings  in 
his  ears.  The  warning  hand  of  Beverly  Robinson  rests  upon 
his  shoulder.  The  danger,  the  disgrace,  the  prize,  are  before 
him.  If  detected,  a  spy;  if  successful,  at  the  head  of  a  victorious 
column  upon  Fort  Putnam  receiving  the  surrender  of  West 
Point;  a  General's  commission;  the  thanks  of  Parliament;  the 
knightly  honors  of  his  King.  Brilliant,  accomplished,  captiva- 
ting, chivalric,  and  ambitious,  his  secret  correspondence  had 
revealed  the  defect  in  his  character;  his  moral  sense  was  para- 
lyzed in  the  presence  of  great  opportunities. 

The  dawn  finds  Arnold  and  Andre  still  in  the  thicket,  still 
disputing  about  the  terms.  Horses  are  hastily  mounted,  and 
they  start  for  Smith's  House,  still  standing  yonder  above  the  bay. 
The  sentinel's  challenge,  the  countersign,  warn  Andre  that  he  is 
in  the  last  position  of  a  soldier :  disguised  and  on  a  secret  mission 
within  the  enemy's  camp.  All  the  morning  that  fearful  bargain- 
ing goes  on,  and  at  last  it  is  settled.  He  receives  the  papers 
giving  the  plans,  fortifications,  armament,  and  troops  at  West 
Point,  the  proceedings  of  Washington's  last  council  of  war,  and 
hides  them  between  his  stockings  and  his  feet.  He  receives  the 
assurance  that  the  defenses  shall  be  so  manned  as  to  fall  without 
a  blow,  assures  Arnold  in  return  a  brigadier-generalship  in  the 
British  army  and  seven  thousand  pounds  in  money,  and  bids  him 
farewell  till  he  meets  him  at  the  close  of  a  sham  combat  to  receive 
his  surrender  and  sword. 

Those  two  men  thus  bidding  adieu  on  yonder  hillside  have 
determined  the  destinies  of  unborn  millions,  none  share  their 
secret,  and  there  is  no  one  to  betray  them.  Once  safely  back 
with  those  papers,  and  America's  doom  is  sealed.  We  bow  with 
devout  and  humble  thanksgiving  to  the  watchful  and  beneficent 


54  ORATIONS   AND   MEMORIAL   ADDRESSES 

Providence  that  turned  most  trivial  circumstances  into  the  power- 
ful elements  which  thwarted  this  well-laid  scheme.  Colonel 
Livingston,  commanding  at  Verplanck's,  refused  by  Arnold  a 
heavy  gun  to  fire  upon  the  Vulture,  had  made  it  so  hot  for  her 
with  a  little  four-pounder  on  Teller's  Point,  that  she  had  dropped 
down  the  river.  The  timid  Smith,  of  whom  posterity  is  in  doubt 
whether  he  was  a  knave  or  a  tool,  was  too  scared  to  venture  to 
reach  her  by  boat,  and  so  the  land  journey  was  determined  upon. 
Still  further  disguised,  and  armed  with  Arnold's  pass  in  the  name 
of  John  Anderson,  Andre  crossed  the  river  on  the  afternoon  of 
the  226.  of  September  to  Verplanck's  Point,  and  safely  passed 
through  Livingston's  camp.  Gayly  he  rides,  accompanied  by 
Smith,  through  the  Cortlandt  woods,  and  over  the  Yorktown  hills. 
He  laughs  as  he  passes  the  ancient  guide-post,  bearing  its  legend, 
"Dishe  his  di  Roode  toe  de  Kshing's  Farray" ;  and  his  hair  stood 
on  end,  he  said,  when  he  met  Colonel  Webb,  of  our  army,  whom 
he  perfectly  knew,  but  who  stared  and  went  on.  His  plan  is  to 
strike  the  White  Plains  road  and  so  reach  his  own  lines.  But  at 
Crumpond  Captain  Boyd  stops  them.  A  most  uncomfortable, 
inquisitive,  vigilant,  and  troublesome  Yankee,  is  this  same  Captain 
Boyd.  Arnold's  pass  stuns  him,  but  it  requires  all  the  versatility 
and  adroitness  of  Andre  to  allay  his  suspicions.  He  so  signifi- 
cantly recommends  their  remaining  all  night  that  they  dare  not 
decline.  A  Westchester  farmer's  bed  never  had  two  more  uneasy 
occupants.  At  early  dawn  they  departed,  with  Captain  Boyd  in 
the  rear,  and  the  Cowboys,  against  whom  Boyd  had  warned  them, 
in  front.  Andre's  spirits  rose.  He  had  left  disgrace  and  a 
shameful  death  behind,  and  saw  only  escape,  glory,  and  renown 
before.  Hitherto  taciturn  and  depressed,  he  now  overwhelmed 
his  dazed  companion  with  a  flood  of  brilliant  talk.  Poetry,  music, 
belles-lettres,  the  drama,  the  times,  formed  the  theme  of  his  flow- 
ing eloquence,  and  ever  and  anon  as  they  ascended  the  many 
eminences  which  command  a  view  of  the  Highlands  and  the  river, 
he  broke  out  in  rapturous  praise  of  the  entrancing  scenery.  Mrs. 
Underhill,  near  Pine's  Bridge,  had  lost  her  all,  but  one  cow  and 
a  bag  of  meal,  by  a  raid  of  the  Cowboys  the  night  before,  but 
with  true  county  hospitality  she  spread  before  them  the  time- 
honored  Westchester  dish  of  suppawn  and  milk.  At  Pine's 
Bridge,  Smith's  courage  failed  and  he  bade  his  companion  good- 
by.     This  was  another  of  the  trivial  incidents  which  led  Andre 


CAPTURE  OF  ANDRE  55 

to  his  fate.  Smith,  with  his  acquaintance  and  ready  wit,  would 
have  piloted  him  safely  by  the  White  Plains  road,  or  upon  the 
other  route,  and  satisfied  the  scruples  of  the  yeomen  who  captured 
him.  Smith  rode  to  West  Point  and  by  his  report  allayed 
Arnold's  anxiety,  and  then  in  the  easy  and  shiftless  character  of 
everybody's  friend,  he  continued  on  to  Fishkill  and  supped  with 
Washington  and  his  staff.  Andre  alone,  free  from  care,  decided 
to  strike  for  the  river :  it  was  a  shorter  road,  and  from  the  Cow- 
boys who  infested  it  he  had  nothing  to  fear;  but  it  was  another 
link  in  the  chain  winding  around  him.  The  broad  domains  of 
his  friends,  the  great  loyalist  families,  lay  about  him,  his  own 
lines  a  few  short  hours  beyond. 

Saturday  morning,  the  23d  of  September,  one  hundred  years 
ago,  was  one  of  those  clear,  bright,  exhilarating  days  when  this 
region  is  in  the  fullness  of  its  quiet  beauty.  The  handsome 
horseman  delights  the  children  of  Staats  Hammond's  family  as 
they  hand  him  a  cup  of  water,  and  leaves  a  lasting  impression 
upon  the  Quakers  of  Chappaqua,  of  whom  he  inquires  the  dis- 
tance to  Tarrytown.  Through  Sparta,  he  strikes  the  river  road, 
and  gallops  along  that  most  picturesque  highway,  the  scenery  in 
harmony  with  the  brilliant  future  spread  before  his  imagination. 
He  recognizes  the  old  Sleepy  Hollow  Church,  with  its  ancient 
bell  bearing  the  motto,  Si  Deus  pro  nobis,  quis  contra  nos,  and 
a  half-mile  in  front  sees  the  bridge  over  the  little  brook  which 
was  to  be  for  him  a  fatal  Rubicon.  On  the  south  side  of  that 
stream,  in  the  bushes  playing  cards,  were  three  young  farmers 
of  the  neighborhood — John  Paulding,  David  Williams,  and  Isaac 
Van  Wart — watching  to  intercept  the  Cowboys  and  their  stolen 
cattle.  At  the  approach  of  the  horseman,  Paulding  steps  into 
the  road,  presents  his  musket,  and  calls  a  halt.  It  was  nine  in 
the  morning ;  they  have  been  there  but  an  hour.  An  earlier  start, 
a  swifter  pace,  and  Andre  would  have  escaped;  but  this  was  still 
another  of  the  trivial  incidents  in  the  fatal  combination  about 
him.  Andre  speaks  first.  "My  lads,  I  hope  you  belong  to  our 
party."  "Which  party?"  they  said.  "The  lower  party,"  he 
answered.  "We  do."  "Then,  thank  God!"  said  he,  "I  am  once 
more  among  friends.  I  am  a  British  officer,  out  on  particular 
business,  and  must  not  be  detained  a  minute."  Then  they  said: 
"We  are  Americans,  and  you  are  our  prisoner  and  must  dis- 
mount."    "My  God !"  he  said  laughing,  "a  man  must  do  anything 


56  ORATIONS   AND   MEMORIAL   ADDRESSES 

to  get  along,"  and  presented  Arnold's  pass.  Had  he  presented  it 
first,  Paulding  said  afterward,  he  would  have  let  him  go.  They 
carefully  scanned  it,  but  persisted  in  detaining  him.  He  threat- 
ened them  with  Arnold's  vengeance  for  this  disrespect  to  his 
order;  but,  in  language  more  forcible  than  polite,  they  told  him 
"they  cared  not  for  that,"  and  led  him  to  the  great  whitewood 
tree,  under  which  he  was  searched.  As  the  fatal  papers  fell 
from  his  feet,  Paulding  said :  "My  God,  here  it  is !"  and,  as  he 
read  them,  shouted  in  high  excitement  to  his  companions,  "By 
God,  he  is  a  spy !" 

Now  came  the  crucial  and  critical  moment.  Andre,  fully 
alive  to  his  danger,  and  with  every  faculty  alert,  felt  no  alarm. 
He  had  the  day  before  bargained  with  and  successfully  bought 
an  American  major-general  of  the  highest  military  reputation. 
If  a  few  thousand  pounds  and  a  commission  in  the  British  army 
could  seduce  the  commander  of  a  district,  surely  escape  was  easy 
from  these  three  young  men,  but  one  of  whom  could  read,  and 
who  were  buttressed  by  neither  fame  nor  fortune.  "If  you  will 
release  me,"  said  Andre,  "I  will  give  you  a  hundred  guineas  and 
any  amount  of  dry  goods."  "I  will  give  you  a  thousand 
guineas,"  he  cried,  "and  you  can  hold  me  hostage  till  one  of  your 
number  returns  with  the  money."  Then  Paulding  swore,  "We 
would  not  let  you  go  for  ten  thousand  guineas."  That  decision 
saved  the  liberties  of  America.  It  voiced  the  spirit  which  sus- 
tained and  carried  through  the  Revolutionary  struggle  for  na- 
tionality, and  crushed  the  rebellion  waged  eighty  years  afterward 
to  destroy  that  nationality — the  invincible  courage  and  impreg- 
nable virtue  of  the  common  people. 

As  Washington  was  riding  that  night  from  Hartford, 
depressed  by  the  refusal  of  Count  Rochambeau,  the  French 
General,  to  co-operate  in  his  plans,  and  to  be  overwhelmed  on 
the  morrow  by  Arnold's  astounding  treason,  all  along  the  route 
enthusiastic  throngs  with  torches  and  acclamations  hailed  his 
approach.  "We  may  be  beaten  by  the  English,"  he  said  to 
Rochambeau's  aide,  "it  is  the  fortune  of  war ;  but  behold  an  army 
which  they  can  never  conquer." 

With  one  of  his  captors  in  front,  the  others  on  either  side 
of  his  horse,  Andre  is  carried  to  Colonel  Jameson's,  the  nearest 
American  post.  The  gay  horseman  has  come  to  grief,  and  the 
buoyant  gallop  to  the  front  has  turned  into  a  funeral  march  to 


CAPTURE  OF  ANDRE  57 

the  rear,  and  he  recalls  the  ill  omen  of  the  song  sung  by  Wolfe 
the  night  before  the  storming  of  Quebec,  and  which  he  had 
repeated  at  the  farewell  dinner  given  him  the  evening  of  his 
departure  on  this  fatal  errand : 

"Why,  soldiers,  why, 
Should  we  be  melancholy,  boys, 
Why,  soldiers,  why, 
Whose  business  'tis  to  die." 

Jameson,  a  brave  and  honest  soldier,  was  easily  duped  by  the 
courtly  arts  of  Andre.  While  he  sent  the  papers  by  special 
messenger  to  Washington,  he  was  persuaded  by  Andre  to  for- 
ward him,  with  a  letter  descriptive  of  his  capture,  to  Arnold. 
Once  there,  and  both  had  escaped.  The  vigilant  and  suspicious 
Major  Tallmadge  induced  Jameson  to  bring  back  Andre;  but  to 
recall  the  letter  to  Arnold  he  positively  refused.  Jameson's 
messenger  to  Washington,  mistaking  his  road,  did  not  reach 
West  Point  till  the  next  noon;  his  messenger  to  Arnold  arrived 
in  the  morning. 

Washington,  on  approaching  the  river,  according  to  his  habit, 
proceeded  at  once  to  examine  the  fortifications.  Lafayette 
reminded  him  that  Mrs.  Arnold's  breakfast  was  waiting.  "You 
young  gentlemen  are  all  in  love  with  Mrs.  Arnold,"  he  said. 
"You  go  and  tell  her  not  to  wait  for  me,  I  will  be  there  in  a  short 
time."  Hamilton  and  McHenry  delivered  the  message,  and 
were  welcomed  by  Arnold  and  his  wife.  In  the  midst  of  the 
meal  Allan,  the  messenger,  delivered  Jameson's  letter.  Arnold's 
iron  nerve  held  him  unconcernedly  at  the  table  a  few  moments; 
then,  saying  he  must  go  over  to  the  Point  to  prepare  for  the 
reception  of  the  General,  he  arose.  His  wife  followed  him 
upstairs.  Hastily  informing  her  of  his  ruin,  and  bidding  her 
perhaps  a  last  farewell,  as  she  fell  fainting  to  the  floor,  he  kissed 
his  sleeping  baby,  stepped  a  moment  into  the  breakfast-room  to 
inform  his  guests  of  the  sudden  illness  of  his  wife,  and,  followed 
by  his  boat's  crew,  dashed  down  the  hillside  to  the  river.  They 
must  row  with  all  their  might,  he  told  them,  as  he  had  a  message 
to  deliver  on  board  the  Vulture,  eighteen  miles  below,  for  Wash- 
ington, and  should  be  back  before  evening.  He  reprimed  his 
pistols,  and,  with  one  in  each  hand,  sat  resolved  to  die  the  death 
of  a  suicide  rather  than  be  captured.    By  promises  of  reward,  by 


58  ORATIONS   AND   MEMORIAL   ADDRESSES 

voice  and  gesture,  he  urges  his  crew  to  their  best  exertions.  His 
guilty  soul  peopling  every  turn  of  the  river  with  avenging  pursuit, 
he  sails  through  the  Highlands,  waving  his  handkerchief  as  a 
flag  to  his  forts,  redoubts,  and  patrols,  astonishing  the  vigilant 
Livingston  at  Verplanck's  with  the  spectacle  of  his  commander 
making  straight  for  the  British  sloop  of  war,  and  takes  the  first 
free  breath  of  relief  as  he  steps  on  the  deck  of  the  Vulture. 

To  his  coxswain  he  offers  a  commission,  to  the  crew  rewards, 
if  they  will  desert  and  join  the  British.  They  unanimously 
refuse,  and  Larvey,  the  coxswain,  replies:  "If  General  Arnold 
likes  the  King  of  England,  let  him  serve  him;  we  love  our  coun- 
try, and  intend  to  live  or  die  in  support  of  her  cause."  At 
Arnold's  command  they  are  made  prisoners,  and  he  stood  there 
among  them  then,  as  he  stands  pilloried  in  history  for  all  time, 
the  only  American  soldier  who,  during  the  Revolutionary  War, 
turned  traitor  to  his  country.  As  Washington  returns  from  the 
inspection  at  West  Point  to  Arnold's  headquarters,  at  the  Robin- 
son House,  he  finds  Hamilton  holding  Jameson's  letters  and  the 
papers  found  on  Andre.  Then  he  understands  Arnold's  sudden 
flight,  the  failure  to  greet  him  from  the  batteries  with  the  accus- 
tomed salute,  the  general  negligence  and  want  of  preparation  for 
attack  everywhere  found.  He  stands  on  a  mine.  How  far  does 
this  conspiracy  extend?  Who  else  are  implicated?  The  enemy 
may  come  this  very  night,  and  who  shall  be  placed  in  posts  of 
danger?  Despairingly  he  says:  "Whom  can  we  trust  now?" 
But  Washington's  greatness  shone  conspicuously  in  great  emer- 
gencies. Hamilton  is  dispatched  to  intercept  Arnold,  if  possible; 
Tallmadge  is  ordered  to  bring  Andre  with  triple  guards  to  West 
Point;  Greene  at  Tappan  is  directed  to  put  the  whole  army  in 
marching  order,  and  before  night  every  fort  and  defense  from 
Putnam  to  Verplanck's  is  ready  for  an  assault.  Then,  with  no 
outward  sign  of  excitement,  Washington  sat  down  to  dinner, 
and  with  courtly  kindness  sent  word  to  Arnold's  hysterical  and 
screaming  wife:  "It  was  my  duty  to  arrest  General  Arnold,  and 
I  have  used  every  exertion  to  do  so,  but  I  take  pleasure  in  inform- 
ing you  that  he  is  now  safe  on  board  the  Vulture." 

Andre  was  brought  to  West  Point  that  night,  and  taken  to 
the  headquarters  of  the  army  at  Tappan  the  next  day.  Accord- 
ing to  the  laws  and  usages  of  war  in  relation  to  spies,  Washington 
could  have  ordered  him  summarily  to  execution;  but  threats  of 


CAPTURE  OF  ANDRE  59 

retaliation,  impudent  letters  from  Arnold,  extraordinary  appeals 
and  interpretations  of  Andre's  conduct  and  position  from  Sir 
Henry  Clinton,  began  to  pour  in  upon  the  Commander-in-Chief. 
He  ordered  a  board  of  officers  to  be  convened,  and  submitted  the 
case  to  their  consideration.  It  was  as  august  a  tribunal  as  ever 
sat  under  like  circumstances.  Six  major-generals  and  eight 
brigadiers,  as  eminent  as  any  in  the  service,  including  the  foreign 
officers  Lafayette  and  Steuben,  formed  the  court.  They  gave 
Andre  every  opportunity  to  present  his  own  defense,  and  when 
the  facts  were  all  in,  unanimously  adjudged  him  guilty,  and  that 
he  must  suffer  the  death  of  a  spy.  His  youth,  graces  and  accom- 
plishments, his  dignity  and  cheerfulness  won  the  affections  of 
his  guard  and  the  tenderest  sympathy  of  the  whole  army.  There 
was  not  a  soldier  present  who  would  not  have  risked  his  life,  if 
by  so  doing  Arnold  might  be  captured  and  substituted  in  Andre's 
place.  In  all  the  glittering  splendor  of  the  full  uniform  and 
ornaments  of  his  rank,  in  the  presence  of  the  whole  American 
army,  without  the  quiver  of  a  muscle  or  sign  of  fear,  the  officers 
about  him  weeping,  the  bands  playing  the  dead  march,  he  walked 
to  execution.  His  last  words  were  of  loving  solicitude  for  the 
welfare  of  mother  and  sisters  in  distant  Britain,  and  the  manner 
of  fame  he  would  leave  behind.  "How  hard  is  my  fate,  but  it 
will  be  but  a  momentary  pang,"  he  said,  as  he  pushed  aside  the 
executioner  and  himself  adjusted  the  rope.  To  those  around  he 
cried,  "I  pray  you  to  bear  witness  that  I  meet  my  fate  like  a 
brave  man,"  and  swung  into  eternity. 

The  supernatural  served  to  add  to  the  interest  and  perpetuate 
the  memory  of  this  tragedy.  On  the  day  of  his  execution  the 
great  tree  under  which  he  was  searched  was  shattered  by  a  bolt 
of  lightning ;  and  at  the  same  hour,  at  his  home  in  England,  his 
sister  awoke  from  a  troubled  sleep  screaming,  "My  brother  is 
dead;  he  has  been  hung  as  a  spy." 

In  the  British  army  and  in  England  the  wildest  indignation 
burst  out  against  Washington.  Andre  was  mourned  and  honored 
as  if  he  had  fallen  in  a  moment  of  glorious  victory  at  the  head  of 
his  column.  His  brother  was  knighted,  his  family  pensioned, 
and  his  King  declared  in  solemn  message  that  "the  public  can 
never  be  compensated  for  the  vast  advantages  which  must  have 
followed  from  the  success  of  his  plan."  In  Westminster  Abbey, 
that  grand  mausoleum  of  England's  mighty  dead,  where  repose 


60  ORATIONS   AND   MEMORIAL   ADDRESSES 

her  great  statesmen,  warriors,  and  authors,  King  George  III. 
placed  a  monument  bearing  this  inscription:  "Sacred  to  the 
memory  of  Major  John  Andre,  who  raised  by  his  merit,  at  an 
early  period  of  life,  to  the  rank  of  Adjutant-General  of  the  Brit- 
ish Forces  in  America,  and  employed  in  an  important  but  hazar- 
dous enterprise,  fell  a  sacrifice  to  his  zeal  for  his  King  and  coun- 
try." Forty  years  afterward  a  royal  embassy  came  to  this  coun- 
try, disinterred  his  remains  at  Tappan,  and  a  British  frigate  sent 
for  the  purpose  bore  them  to  England,  where  they  were  buried 
beside'  his  monument1  with  imposing  ceremonies.  One  of  the 
most  enlightened  and  liberal  of  England's  churchmen,  in  a  recent 
visit  to  this  land,  wrote  the  inscription  for,  and  urged  the  erection 
of,  the  monument  to  Andre's  memory  at  Tappan,  as  one  act 
which  would  do  more  than  anything  else  to  remove  the  last  ves- 
tiges of  enmity  between  the  United  States  and  Great  Britain.2 
Andre's  story  is  the  one  overmastering  romance  of  the  Revo- 
lution. American  and  English  literature  is  full  of  eloquence  and 
poetry  in  tribute  to  his  memory  and  sympathy  for  his  fate.  Af- 
ter the  lapse  of  a  hundred  years  there  is  no  abatement  of  ab- 
sorbing interest.  What  had  this  young  man  done  to  merit  im- 
mortality? The  mission,  whose  tragic  issue  lifted  him  out  of 
the  oblivion  of  other  minor  British  officers,  in  its  inception  was 
free  from  peril  or  daring,  and  its  objects  and  purposes  were  ut- 
terly infamous.  Had  he  succeeded  by  the  desecration  of  the 
honorable  uses  of  passes  and  flags  of  truce,  his  name  would  have 
been  held  in  everlasting  execration.  In  his  failure,  the  infant 
Republic  escaped  the  dagger  with  which  he  was  feeling  for  its 
heart,  and  the  crime  was  drowned  in  tears  for  his  untimely  end. 
His  youth  and  beauty,  his  skill  with  pen  and  pencil,  his  effervesc- 
ing spirits  and  magnetic  disposition,  the  brightness  of  his  life, 
the  calm  courage  in  the  gloom  of  his  death,  his  early  love  and 
disappointment,  and  the  image  of  his  lost  Honora  hid  in  his 
mouth  when  captured  in  Canada,  with  the  exclamation,  "That 
saved,  I  care  not  for  the  loss  of  all  the  rest,"  and  nestling  in  his 
bosom  when  he  was  slain,  surrounded  him  with  a  halo  of  poetry 

JThe  inscription  on  the  plinth  reads:  "The  remains  of  the  said  Major  Andre  were 
deposited  on  the  28th  of  November,   1821,  in  a  grave  near  this  monument."— Ed. 

»A  curious  commentary  on  this  is  that  the  monument  to  Andre  at  Tappan  was  dyna- 
mited by  mistaken  patriots,  and  the  head  of  Washington,  who  is  represented  standing 
in  a  group  in  the  raised  bas-relief  on  the  sarcophagus  in  Westminster  Abbey,  has  been 
knocked  off  several  times  by  Andre's  unforgiving  countrymen. — Ed. 


CAPTURE  OF  ANDRE  61 

and  pity  which  have  secured  for  him  what  he  most  sought  and 
could  never  have  won  in  battles  and  sieges — a  fame  and  recogni- 
tion which  have  outlived  that  of  all  the  generals  under  whom 
he  served. 

Are  kings  only  grateful,  and  do  republics  forget?  Is  fame 
a  travesty,  and  the  judgment  of  mankind  a  farce?  America  had 
a  parallel  case  in  Captain  Nathan  Hale.  Of  the  same  age  as 
Andre,  he  graduated  at  Yale  College  with  high  honors,  enlisted 
in  the  patriot  cause  at  the  beginning  of  the  contest,  and  secured 
the  love  and  confidence  of  all  about  him.  When  none  else  would 
go  upon  a  most  important  and  perilous  mission  he  volunteered, 
and  was  captured  by  the  British.  While  Andre  received  every 
kindness,  courtesy,  and  attention,  and  was  fed  from  Washing- 
ton's table,  Hale  was  thrust  into  a  noisome  dungeon  in  the  sugar- 
house.  While  Andre  was  tried  by  a  board  of  officers  and  had 
ample  time  and  every  facility  for  defense,  Hale  was  summarily 
ordered  to  execution  the  next  morning.  While  Andre's  last 
wishes  and  bequests  were  sacredly  followed,  the  infamous  Cun- 
ningham tore  from  Hale  his  cherished  Bible  and  destroyed  be- 
fore his  eyes  his  last  letters  to  his  mother  and  sister,  and  asked 
him  what  he  had  to  say.  "All  I  have  to  say,"  was  his  reply,  "is, 
I  regret  I  have  but  one  life  to  lose  for  my  country."  His  death 
was  concealed  for  months,  because  Cunningham  said  he  did  not 
want  the  rebels  to  know  they  had  a  man  who  could  die  so  brave- 
ly. And  yet,  while  Andre  rests  in  that  grandest  of  mausoleums, 
where  the  proudest  of  nations  garners  the  remains  and  perpetu- 
ates the  memories  of  its  most  eminent  and  honored  children,  the 
name  and  deeds  of  Nathan  Hale  have  passed  into  oblivion,  and 
only  a  simple  tomb  in  a  village  church-yard  marks  his  resting 
place.3  The  dying  declarations  of  Andre  and  Hale  express  the 
animating  spirit  of  their  several  armies,  and  teach  why,  with  all 
her  power,  England  could  not  conquer  America.  "I  call  upon 
you  to  witness  that  I  die  like  a  brave  man,"  said  Andre,  and  he 
spoke  from  British  and  Hessian  surroundings,  seeking  only  glory 
and  pay.  "I  regret  I  have  but  one  life  to  lose  for  my  country," 
said  Hale ;  and  with  him  and  his  comrades  self  was  forgotten  in 
that  absorbing,  passionate  patriotism  which  pledges  fortune,  hon- 
or, and  life  to  the  sacred  cause. 

8 A  bronze  statue  of  Hale  was  erected  in  1893  in  City  Hall  Park,  New  York,  often 
erroneously  spoken  of  as  the  scene  of  his  execution.  Hale  was  hanged  at  what  is  now 
the  corner   of  Forty-fifth   Street  and   First  Avenue. — Ed. 


62  ORATIONS   AND   MEMORIAL   ADDRESSES 

But  republics  are  not  ungrateful.  The  captors  of  Andre  were 
honored  and  rewarded  in  their  lives,  and  grateful  generations 
celebrate  their  deeds  and  revere  their  memories.  Washington 
wrote  to  Congress :  "The  party  that  took  Major  Andre  acted  in 
such  a  manner  as  does  them  the  highest  honor,  and  proves  them 
to  be  men  of  great  virtue ;  their  conduct  gives  them  a  just  claim 
to  the  thanks  of  their  country."  Congress  acted  promptly.  It 
thanked  them  by  resolution,  granted  to  each  an  annuity  of  two 
hundred  dollars  for  life,  and  twelve  hundred  and  fifty  dollars  in 
cash,  or  the  same  amount  in  confiscated  lands  in  Westchester 
County,  and  directed  a  silver  medal,  bearing  the  motto  "Fidelity'' 
on  the  one  side  and  "Vincit  Amor  Patrice"  on  the  other,  to  be 
presented  to  them.  The  Legislature  of  the  State  of  New  York 
gave  to  each  of  them  a  farm,  in  consideration — reads  the  act — 
of  "their  virtue  in  refusing  a  large  sum  offered  to  them  by  Major 
Andre  as  a  bribe  to  permit  him  to  escape."  Shortly  after,  Wash- 
ington gave  a  grand  dinner-party  at  Verplanck's  Point.  At  the 
table  were  his  staff  and  the  famous  generals  of  the  army,  and  as 
honored  guests  these  three  young  men,  Paulding,  Williams,  and 
Van  Wart,  whose  names  were  now  household  words  all  over  the 
land ;  and  there,  with  solemn  and  impressive  speech,  Washington 
presented  the  medals.  Paulding  died  in  1818,  and  in  1827  the 
Corporation  of  the  City  of  New  York  placed  a  monument  over 
his  grave  in  the  old  cemetery  just  north  of  Peekskill,  reciting, 
"The  Corporation  of  the  City  of  New  York  erected  this  Tomb  as 
a  Memorial  Sacred  to  Public  Gratitude,"  the  Mayor  delivering 
the  address,  and  a  vast  concourse  participating  in  the  ceremonies. 
Van  Wart  died  in  1828,  and  in  the  Greenburgh  church -yard  the 
citizens  of  the  country  erected  a  memorial  in  "Testimony  of  his 
Virtuous  and  Patriotic  Conduct."  Williams  died  in  Livingston- 
ville,  in  Schoharie  County,  in  1831,  and  was  buried  with  military 
honors.  In  1876  the  State  erected  a  monument,  and  his  remains 
were  re-interred  in  the  old  stone  fort  at  Schoharie  Court-house. 
On  the  spot  where  Andre  was  captured  the  young  men  of  West- 
chester County,  in  1853,  built  a  cenotaph  in  honor  of  his  captors. 

Arnold,  burned  in  effigy  in  every  village  and  hamlet  in  Am- 
erica, received  his  money  and  a  commission  in  the  British  army, 
but  was  daily  insulted  by  the  proud  and  honorable  officers  upon 
whom  his  association  was  forced,  and  who  despised  alike  the 
treason  and  the  traitor.    His  infamy  has  served  to  gild  and  gloss 


CAPTURE  OF  ANDRE  63 

the  acts  of  Andre,  and,  deepening  with  succeeding  years,  brings 
out  with  each  generation  a  clearer  and  purer  appreciation  of  the 
virtue  and  patriotism  of  Paulding,  Williams,  and  Van  Wart. 

Pity  for  Andre  led  to  grave  injustice  to  Washington  and  de- 
traction of  his  captors,  which  a  century  has  not  effaced.  Sir 
Henry  Clinton  and  his  officers,  in  addresses  and  memoirs,  de- 
nounced the  execution  of  Andre  as  without  justification.  A  con- 
temporary British  poetess  characterized  Washington  as  a  "re- 
morseless murderer,"  and  one  of  the  latest  and  ablest  of  Eng- 
land's historians  says  this  act  is  the  one  indelible  "blot  upon  his 
character,"  and  that  the  decision  of  the  military  tribunal  com- 
posed of  men  ignorant  of  Vattel  and  Puffendorff,  and  fresh  from 
"plow-handles  and  shop-boards,"  does  not  relieve  him.  It  has  be- 
come a  conviction  abroad,  and  to  some  extent  a  sentiment  here, 
that  a  grave  and  fatal  error  was  committed.  It  is  claimed  that 
Andre  was  under  the  protection  of  a  flag  of  truce;  that  he  was 
within  the  American  lines  upon  the  invitation  of  the  commander 
of  the  district,  and  under  the  protection  of  that  General's  pass; 
that  his  intent  was  free  from  turpitude,  and  the  circumstances 
surrounding  his  position  entitled  him  to  exchange  or  discharge. 
When  Andre  was  on  trial  upon  the  charge  of  being  a  spy,  he  testi- 
fied in  his  own  behalf  that  "he  had  reason  to  suppose  he  came 
on  shore  under  a  flag  of  truce,"  and  such  is  the  concurrent  testi- 
mony of  all  the  witnesses.  The  story  was  the  subsequent  inven- 
tion of  Arnold;  but,  even  if  true,  the  flag  is  recognized  in  the 
usages  of  war  for  definite  and  honorable  purposes — it  ameliorates 
the  horrors  of  the  conflict;  but  when  used  as  a  cover  for  treas- 
onable purposes,  loses  its  character  and  protective  power.  To  pre- 
sent it  as  a  defense  and  shield  for  the  corrupt  correspondence  of 
the  enemy's  emissary  and  a  traitorous  officer,  is  a  monstrous  per- 
version. It  is  true  he  was  present  at  Arnold's  invitation  and  car- 
ried his  pass,  but  he  knew  the  object  of  his  visit,  and  did  not  hold 
the  pass  in  his  own  name  and  title.  Months  before  he  had  writ- 
ten to  Colonel  Sheldon,  commanding  the  Continental  outposts, 
that  under  flag  and  pass  he  purposed  visiting,  on  important  busi- 
ness, General  Arnold,  at  West  Point,  and  requesting  safe  con- 
duct, and  signing  and  representing  himself  as  John  Anderson,  a 
trader.  The  meeting  which  finally  took  place  was  an  appoint- 
ment often  before  thwarted,  and  its  object  to  tamper  with  the 
integrity  and  seduce   from  his   allegiance  the  enemy's   officer. 


64  ORATIONS   AND   MEMORIAL   ADDRESSES 

The  signals  and  agencies  of  communication  and  travel  between 
hostile  forces  were  collusively  used  to  procure  the  betrayal  of  an 
army  and  the  ruin  of  a  nation.  Andre  landed  at  Haverstraw 
to  traffic  with  the  necessities  and  tempt  the  irritated  pride  of  a 
bankrupt  and  offended  general,  and  having  succeeded  in  seduc- 
ing him  to  surrender  the  forts  and  trusts  under  his  command, 
Benedict  Arnold,  so  far  as  his  confederate  Andre  was  concerned, 
ceased  from  that  moment  to  be  the  American  commander,  and 
any  papers  issued  by  him  to  further  and  conceal  the  scheme  were 
absolutely  void.  His  pass  and  safe-conduct  were  not  only  vitiated 
in  their  inception  by  the  joint  act  of  giver  and  receiver,  secreting 
treason  in  them,  but  they  were  issued  to  an  assumed  name  and 
borne  in  a  false  character.  A  British  soldier  found  disguised  in 
the  American  lines,  with  the  plans  of  the  patriots'  forts,  the  de- 
tails of  their  armament,  and  the  outlines  of  the  plot  for  their  be- 
trayal, hidden  in  his  boots,  lost,  with  the  discovery  of  his  person- 
ality and  purposes,  the  protection  of  a  fraudulent  certificate. 
Greene  and  Knox,  Lafayette  and  Steuben,  and  the  other 
members  of  the  board  of  officers  who  tried  and  convicted  Andre, 
may  possibly  have  been  ignorant  of  the  great  authorities  upon  in- 
ternational law ;  but  had  they  studied,  they  would  have  found  in 
them  both  precedent  and  justification.  While  the  laws  of  war 
justify  tampering  with  the  opposing  commander  and  compassing 
his  desertion,  the  sudden,  unsuspected,  unguardable,  and  over- 
whelming character  of  the  blow  renders  it  the  highest  of  crimes, 
and  subjects  those  detected  and  arrested  in  the  act  to  summary 
execution.  A  general  is  commissioned  by  his  government  to 
fight  its  battles  and  protect  its  interests.  The  law  of  principal 
and  agent  is  as  applicable  as  to  a  civil  transaction,  and  all  who  deal 
with  him,  to  betray  his  trust,  know  that  he  is  acting  beyond  the 
limits  of  his  authority.  Not  the  least  remarkable  of  the  inci- 
dents of  this  strange  history  was  the  proposition  of  Sir  Henry 
Clinton  to  submit  the  question  to  the  arbitration  of  the  French 
General  Rochambeau  and  the  Hessian  General  Knyphausen. 
Such  an  offer  would  never  have  been  made  to  a  European  com- 
mander. It  was  an  expression,  in  a  form  most  offensive  to 
Washington,  of  that  supercilious  contempt  for  the  abilities,  ac- 
quirements, and  opinions  of  American  soldiers  and  statesmen, 
on  the  part  of  the  ruling  classes  in  England,  which  precipitated 
the  Revolution  and  created  this  Republic.     The  sympathy  and 


CAPTURE  OF  ANDRE  65 

grief  of  Washington  for  Andre  and  his  misfortunes  were  among 
the  deepest  and  profoundest  emotions  of  his  life.  The  most  ur- 
gent public  necessity,  the  most  solemn  of  public  duties,  demanded 
his  decision.  The  country  and  the  army  were  dismayed  by  the 
plot,  which  Congress  declared  would  have  been  ruinous  to  the 
cause;  which  Greene  proclaimed  in  general  order  would  have 
been  a  fatal  stab  at  our  liberties ;  which  King  George  the  Third 
said  possessed  advantages  that,  if  successful,  could  not  be  esti- 
mated ;  and,  as  Sir  Henry  Clinton  wrote,  would  have  ended  the 
conflict.  Washington's  remark  to  Lafayette,  "Whom  can  we  trust 
now?"  echoed  the  sentiment  of  the  hour.  In  that  supreme  mo- 
ment, private  considerations  and  personal  pity  surrendered  to 
the  requirements  of  official  responsibility,  and  General  Wash- 
ington, the  Commander-in-Chief,  stamped  out  treasonable  senti- 
ment within,  and  deterred  treasonable  efforts  without,  by  sign- 
ing the  death  warrant  of  Major  John  Andre. 

Andre  left  as  a  legacy  a  blow  at  his  captors  which,  thirty- 
seven  years  afterward,  bore  extraordinary  fruit.  In  1817  one 
of  them  petitioned  Congress  for  an  increase  of  pension,  and  Ma- 
jor Tallmadge,4  then  a  member  assailed  them  with  great  vigor  and 
virulence.  He  had  been  a  distinguished  officer  in  the  Revolu- 
tionary War.  It  was  by  his  energy  and  sagacity  that  Lieutenant- 
Colonel  Jameson  was  prevented  from  delivering  Andre  to  Ar- 
nold, and  he  was  in  command  of  the  guard  and  with  Andre 
till  his  death.  Like  all  the  young  American  officers  about  him, 
Tallmadge  formed  a  warm  friendship  for  him,  and  admiration 
of  his  character  and  accomplishments.  He  asserted  that  his 
captors  were  Cowboys,  and  that  it  was  Andre's  opinion,  frequent- 
ly expressed,  that  they  stopped  him  for  plunder,  and  would  have 
released  him  if  he  could  have  given  security  for  his  ransom.  Tall- 
madge knew  nothing  of  either  of  them  prior  to  this  event,  and 
his  judgment  was  wholly  the  reflex  of  Andre's  expressions.  An- 
dre's remarks  were  either  a  deliberate  stab  at  the  reputations  of 
the  men  toward  whom  the  nation's  gratitude  was  already  ris- 
ing with  a  volume  which  promised  an  immortality  of  fame,  while 
he  was  waiting  a  shameful  death,  or  in  his  dread  extremity  he 
could  neither  understand  any  higher  motive  in  them  to  resist  his  of- 
fers, nor  regard  with  tolerance  or  patience  these  humble  peasants 

*Benjamin  Tallmadge,  born  at  Brookhaven,  Long  Island,  N.Y.,  in  1754,  died  at  Litch- 
field, Conn.,  where  he  settled  in  1782,  in  1835.  He  was  a  Member  of  Congress  in  1801- 
17.     Major  Tallmadge  walked  with  Andre  to  the  place  of  execution. — Ed, 

Vol,  1-5 


66  ORATIONS   AND   MEMORIAL   ADDRESSES 

whose  acts  had  ruined  his  fortunes  and  delivered  him  to  his  fate. 
But  against  assertions  and  theories  stand  the  impregnable  facts 
of  history.  They  did  reject  bribes  beyond  the  wildest  dreams  of 
any  wealth  they  ever  hoped  to  accumulate.  They  did  deliver  him 
to  the  nearest  American  post,  and  neither  asked  nor  expected  any 
reward.  Van  Wart  had  served  four  years  in  the  Westchester  Mil- 
itia, and  his  term  of  enlistment  had  but  recently  expired.  Pauld- 
ing had  been  twice  a  British  prisoner  of  war  in  New  York,  and 
was  a  third  time  wounded  in  their  hands  at  the  declaration  of 
peace,  and  the  Yager  uniform  in  which  he  had  escaped  but  four 
days  before  the  capture  misled  Andre  into  the  impulsive  reve- 
lation of  his  rank.  Security  for  the  ransom  they  had.  As  they 
were  intelligent  enough  to  understand  the  importance  of  their 
prisoner,  they  knew  that  while  two  held  him  as  hostage,  the  third 
could  arrange  for  the  delivery  of  any  sum  he  promised  upon  his 
release.  Washington,  the  Continental  Congress,  and  the  Legis- 
lature of  our  own  State  are  the  contemporary  witnesses,  and 
their  testimonies,  by  words  and  deeds,  are  part  of  the  record 
which  makes  this  day  memorable.  When  the  news  of  Major 
Tallmadge's  charges  was  received  here,  sixteen  of  the  most  re- 
spected and  reputable  men  of  our  county — names  as  familiar 
among  us  as  household  words — certified  to  Congress,  "that  dur- 
ing the  Revolutionary  War  they  were  well  acquainted  with  Isaac 
Van  Wart,  David  Williams,  and  John  Paulding,  and  that  at  no 
time  during  the  Revolutionary  War  was  any  suspicion  entertained 
by  their  neighbors  or  acquaintances  that  they  or  either  of  them 
held  any  undue  intercourse  with  the  enemy.  On  the  contrary, 
they  were  universally  esteemed,  and  taken  to  be  ardent  and  faith- 
ful in  the  cause  of  the  country."  Van  Wart  and  Paulding,  in  sol- 
emn affidavits,  reasserted  the  details  of  the  capture  and  the  mo- 
tives of  their  conduct.  As  each  of  them  in  ripe  old  age  and  the 
fullness  of  years  was  called  to  render  his  account  to  the  Great 
Judge,  mourning  thousands  gathered  about  the  graves  to  testify 
their  reverence;  and  the  respect  and  gratitude  of  their  country- 
men reared  monuments  to  their  memories. 

The  population,  prosperity,  wealth,  and  luxury  which  sur- 
round us  here  have  grown  upon  the  devastated  fields  of  a  cen- 
tury ago.  We  re-dedicate  this  cenotaph  in  honor  of  those  whose 
virtues  made  possible  this  result.  The  peace,  civilization,  liberty, 
and  happiness  we  enjoy  at  home,  the  power  which  commands 


CAPTURE  OF  ANDRE  67 

for  us  respect  abroad,  lie  in  the  strength  and  perpetuity  of  our 
republican  institutions.  Had  they  been  lost  by  battle  or  treason 
in  the  Revolutionary  struggle,  or  sunk  in  the  bloody  chasm  of 
civil  war,  the  grand  nationality  of  to-day  would  have  been  de- 
pendent provinces,  or  warring  and  burdened  States.  Arnold  and 
Andre,  Paulding,  Williams,  and  Van  Wart,  are  characters  in 
a  drama  which  crystallizes  an  eternal  principle :  that  these  insti- 
tutions rest  upon  the  integrity  and  patriotism  of  the  common  peo- 
ple. We  are  not  here  to  celebrate  marches,  sieges  and  battles. 
The  trumpet,  the  charge,  the  waving  plume,  the  flying  enemy, 
the  hero's  death,  are  not  our  inspiration.  The  light  which  made 
clear  to  these  men  the  priceless  value  of  country  and  liberty  was 
but  the  glimmering  dawn,  compared  with  the  noonday  glory  of 
the  full-orbed  radiance  in  which  we  stand.  As  a  hundred  years 
have  ripened  the  fame  and  enriched  the  merit  of  their  deed,  so 
will  it  be  rehearsed  with  increasing  gratitude  by  each  succeed- 
ing century.  This  modest  shaft  marks  the  memorable  spot  where 
they  withstood  temptation  and  saved  the  State,  but  their  monu- 
ment is  the  Republic — its  inscription  upon  the  hearts  of  its  teem- 
ing and  happy  millions. 


COLUMBIAN  ORATION 


THE  COLUMBIAN  ORATION,  DELIVERED  AT  THE  DEDICATORY  CERE- 
MONIES OF  THE  WORLD'S  FAIR,  CHICAGO,  OCTOBER  21,   1 892. 

This  day  belongs  not  to  America  alone,  but  to  the  world. 
The  results  of  the  event  it  commemorates  are  the  heritage  of  the 
peoples  of  every  race  and  clime.  We  celebrate  the  emancipa- 
tion of  man.  The  preparation  was  the  work  of  almost  countless 
centuries;  the  realization  was  the  revelation  of  one.  The  Cross 
on  Calvary  was  hope;  the  cross  raised  on  San  Salvador  was  op- 
portunity. But  for  the  first,  Columbus  would  never  have  sailed ; 
but  for  the  second,  there  would  have  been  no  place  for  the  plant- 
ing, the  nurture,  and  the  expansion  of  civil  and  religious  liberty. 
Ancient  history  is  a  dreary  record  of  unstable  civilizations.  Each 
reached  its  zenith  of  material  splendor,  and  perished.  The  As- 
syrian, Persian,  Egyptian,  Grecian,  and  Roman  Empires  were 
proofs  of  the  possibilities  and  limitations  of  man  for  conquest 
and  intellectual  development.  Their  destruction  involved  a  sum 
of  misery  and  relapse  which  made  their  creation  rather  a  curse 
than  a  blessing.  Force  was  the  factor  in  the  government  of  the 
world  when  Christ  was  born,  and  force  was  the  source  and  ex- 
ercise of  authority  both  by  Church  and  State  when  Columbus 
sailed  from  Palos.  The  Wise  Men  traveled  from  the  East  to- 
ward the  West  under  the  guidance  of  the  Star  of  Bethlehem. 
The  spirit  of  the  equality  of  all  men  before  God  and  the  law 
moved  westward  from  Calvary,  with  its  revolutionary  influence 
upon  old  institutions,  to  the  Atlantic  Ocean.  Columbus  carried 
it  westward  across  the  seas.  The  emigrants  from  England,  Ireland, 
Scotland,  and  Wales,  from  Germany  and  Holland,  from  Swe- 
den and  Denmark,  from  France  and  Italy,  from  Spain  and  Por- 
tugal, under  its  guidance  and  inspiration,  moved  West,  and  again 
West,  building  states  and  founding  cities  until  the  Pacific  limited 
their  march.  The  exhibition  of  arts  and  sciences,  of  industries 
and  inventions,  of  education  and  civilization,  which  the  Republic 
of  the  United  States  will  here  present,  and  to  which,  through  its 
Chief  Magistrate,  it  invites  all  nations,  condenses  and  displays 
the  flower  and  fruitage  of  this  transcendent  miracle. 

68 


COLUMBIAN  ORATION  69 


The  anarchy  and  chaos  which  followed  the  breaking  up  of 
the  Roman  Empire  necessarily  produced  the  feudal  system.  The 
people,  preferring  slavery  to  annihilation  by  robber  chiefs,  be- 
came the  vassals  of  territorial  lords.  The  reign  of  physical  force 
is  one  of  perpetual  struggle  for  the  mastery.  Power  which  rests 
upon  the  sword  neither  shares  nor  limits  its  authority.  The  king 
destroyed  the  lords,  and  the  monarchy  succeeded  feudalism. 
Neither  of  these  institutions  considered  or  consulted  the  people. 
They  had  no  part  but  to  suffer  or  die  in  this  mighty  strife  of 
masters  for  the  mastery.  But  the  throne,  by  its  broader  view 
and  greater  resources,  made  possible  the  construction  of  the 
highways  of  freedom.  Under  its  banner  races  could  unite  and 
petty  principalities  be  merged,  law  could  be  substituted  for  brute 
force  and  right  for  might.  It  founded  and  endowed  universi- 
ties, and  encouraged  commerce.  It  conceded  no  political  privi- 
leges, but  unconsciously  prepared  its  subjects  to  demand  them. 

Absolutism  in  the  State  and  intolerance  in  the  Church 
shackled  popular  unrest,  and  imprisoned  thought  and  enterprise 
in  the  fifteenth  century.  The  divine  right  of  kings  stamped  out 
the  faintest  glimmer  of  revolt  against  tyranny,  and  the  problems 
of  science,  whether  of  the  skies  or  of  the  earth,  whether  of  as- 
tronomy or  geography,  were  solved  or  submerged  by  ecclesias- 
tical decrees.  The  dungeon  was  ready  for  the  philosopher  who 
proclaimed  the  truths  of  the  solar  system,  or  the  navigator  who 
would  prove  the  sphericity  of  the  earth.  An  English  Gladstone, 
a  French  Gambetta,  a  German  Bismarck,  an  Italian  Garibaldi, 
a  Spanish  Castelar,  would  have  been  thought  a  monster ;  and  his 
death  at  the  stake  or  on  the  scaffold,  and  under  the  anathemas  of 
the  Church,  would  have  received  the  praise  and  approval  of  kings 
and  nobles,  of  priests  and  peoples.  Reason  had  no  seat  in  spirit- 
ual or  temporal  realms.  Punishment  was  the  incentive  to  pat- 
riotism, and  piety  was  held  possible  by  torture.  Confessions  of 
faith  extorted  from  the  writhing  victim  on  the  rack  were  believed 
efficacious  in  saying  his  soul  from  fires  eternal  beyond  the  grave. 
For  all  that  humanity  to-day  cherishes  as  its  best  heritage  and 
choicest  gifts,  there  was  neither  thought  nor  hope. 

Fifty  years  before  Columbus  sailed  from  Palos,  Gutenberg 
and  Faust  had  forged  the  hammer  which  was  to  break  the  bonds 
of  superstition  and  open  the  prison  doors  of  the  mind.  They 
had  invented  the  printing  press  and  movable  types.     The  prior 


70  ORATIONS   AND    MEMORIAL   ADDRESSES 

adoption  of  a  cheap  process  for  the  manufacture  of  paper  at  o  ice 
utilized  the  press.  Its  first  service,  like  all  its  succeeding  efforts, 
was  for  the  people.  The  universities  and  the  schoolmen,  the  privi- 
leged and  the  learned  few  of  that  age,  were  longing  for  the  reve- 
lation and  preservation  of  the  classic  treasures  of  antiquity,  hid- 
den, and  yet  insecure,  in  monastic  cells  and  libraries.  But  the 
first-born  of  the  marvelous  creations  of  these  primitive  printers 
of  Mayence  was  the  printed  Bible.  The  priceless  contributions 
of  Greece  and  Rome  to  the  intellectual  training  and  development 
of  the  modern  world  came  afterward,  through  the  same  wondrous 
machine.  The  force,  however,  which  made  possible  America, 
and  its  reflex  influence  upon  Europe,  was  the  open  Bible  by  the 
family  fireside.  And  yet  neither  the  enlightenment  of  the  new 
learning,  nor  the  dynamic  power  of  the  spiritual  awakening, 
could  break  through  the  crust  of  caste  which  had  been  forming 
for  centuries.  Church  and  State  had  so  firmly  and  dexterously 
interwoven  the  bars  of  privilege  and  authority  that  liberty  was 
impossible  from  within.  Its  piercing  light  and  fervent  heat  must 
penetrate  from  without. 

Civil  and  religious  freedom  are  founded  upon  the  individual 
and  his  independence,  his  worth,  his  rights,  and  his  equal  status 
and  opportunity.  For  his  planting  and  development  a  new  land 
must  be  found,  where,  with  limitless  areas  for  expansion,  the 
avenues  of  progress  would  have  no  bars  of  custom  or  heredity, 
of  social  orders  or  privileged  classes.  The  time  had  come  for 
the  emancipation  of  the  mind  and  soul  of  humanity.  The  fac- 
tors wanting  for  its  fulfillment  were  the  new  world  and  its  dis- 
coverer. 

God  always  has  in  training  some  commanding  genius  for  the 
control  of  great  crises  in  the  affairs  of  nations  and  peoples.  The 
number  of  these  leaders  is  less  than  the  centuries,  but  their  lives 
are  the  history  of  human  progress.  Though  Caesar  and  Charle- 
magne, Hildebrand  and  Luther,  William  the  Conqueror  and  Oli- 
ver Cromwell,  and  all  the  epoch  makers  prepared  Europe  for  the 
event  and  contributed  to  the  result,  the  lights  which  illumine  our 
firmament  to-day  are  Columbus  the  discoverer,  Washington  the 
founder,  and  Lincoln  the  saviour. 

Neither  realism  nor  romance  furnishes  a  more  striking  and 
picturesque  figure  than  that  of  Christopher  Columbus.  The  mys- 
tery about  his  origin  heightens  the  charm  of  his  story.    That  he 


COLUMBIAN  ORATION  71 

came  from  among  the  toilers  of  his  time  is  in  harmony  with  the 
struggles  of  our  period.  Forty-four  so-called  authentic  portraits 
of  him  have  descended  to  us,  and  no  two  of  them  are  the  coun- 
terfeits of  the  same  person.  Each  represents  a  character  as  dis- 
tinct as  its  canvas.  Strength  and  weakness,  intellectuality  and 
stupidity,  high  moral  purpose  and  brutal  ferocity,  purity  and  lic- 
entiousness, the  dreamer  and  the  miser,  the  pirate  and  the  puritan, 
are  the  types  from  which  we  may  select  our  hero.  We  dismiss 
the  painter  and,  piercing  with  the  clarified  vision  of  the  dawn  of 
the  twentieth  century  the  veil  of  four  hundred  years,  we  con- 
struct our  Columbus. 

The  perils  of  the  sea  in  his  youth  upon  the  rich  argosies  of 
Genoa,  or  in  the  service  of  the  licensed  rovers  who  made  them 
their  prey,  had  developed  a  skillful  navigator  and  intrepid  ma- 
riner. They  had  given  him  a  glimpse  of  the  possibilities  of  the 
unknown  beyond  the  highways  of  travel,  which  roused  an  un- 
quenchable thirst  for  adventure  and  research.  The  study  of  the 
narratives  of  previous  explorers,  and  diligent  questionings  of  the 
daring  spirits  who  had  ventured  far  toward  the  fabled  West, 
gradually  evolved  a  theory,  which  became  in  his  mind  so  fixed  a 
fact  that  he  could  inspire  others  with  his  own  passionate  beliefs. 
The  words  "that  is  a  lie,"  written  by  him  on  the  margin  of  nearly 
every  page  of  a  volume  of  the  travels  of  Marco  Polo,  which  is  still 
to  be  found  in  a  Genoese  library,  illustrate  the  skepticism  of  his 
beginning,  and  the  first  vision  of  the  New  World  the  fulfillment 
of  his  faith. 

To  secure  the  means  to  test  the  truth  of  his  speculations,  this 
poor  and  unknown  dreamer  must  win  the  support  of  kings  and 
overcome  the  hostility  of  the  Church.  He  never  doubted  his  abil- 
ity to  do  both,  though  he  knew  of  no  man  living  who  was  so  great 
in  power,  or  lineage,  or  learning  that  he  could  accomplish  either. 
Unaided  and  alone  he  succeeded  in  arousing  the  jealousies  of 
sovereigns,  and  dividing  the  councils  of  the  ecclesiastics.  "I 
will  command  your  fleet  and  discover  for  you  new  realms,  but 
only  on  condition  that  you  confer  on  me  hereditary  nobility,  the 
Admiralty  of  the  Ocean,  and  the  Vice-Royalty  and  one-tenth  of 
the  revenues  of  the  New  World/'  were  his  haughty  terms  to 
King  John  of  Portugal.  After  ten  years  of  disappointment  and 
poverty,  subsisting  most  of  the  time  upon  the  charity  of  the  en- 
lightened monk  of  the  Convent  of  Rabida,  who  was  his  unfalter- 


72  ORATIONS   AND   MEMORIAL   ADDRESSES 

ing  friend,  he  stood  before  the  throne  of  Ferdinand  and  Isabella 
and,  rising  to  imperial  dignity  in  his  rage,  embodied  the  same 
royal  conditions  in  his  petition.  The  capture  of  Granada,  the 
expulsion  of  Islam  from  Europe,  and  the  triumph  of  the  Cross 
aroused  the  admiration  and  devotion  of  Christendom.  But  this 
proud  beggar,  holding  in  his  grasp  the  potential  promise  and 
dominion  of  El  Dorado  and  Cathay,  divided  with  the  Moslem 
surrender  the  attention  of  sovereigns  and  of  bishops.  France 
and  England  indicated  a  desire  to  hear  his  theories  and  see  his 
maps  while  he  was-  still  a  suppliant  at  the  gates  of  the  camp  of 
Castile  and  Aragon,  the  sport  of  its  courtiers  and  the  scoff  of 
its  confessors.  His  unshakable  faith  that  Christopher  Columbus 
was  commissioned  from  heaven,  by  his  name  and  by  Divine  com- 
mand, to  carry  "Christ  across  the  sea"  to  new  continents  and 
pagan  peoples,  lifted  him  so  far  above  the  discouragements  of 
an  empty  purse  and  a  contemptuous  court  that  he  was  proof 
against  the  rebuffs  of  fortune  or  of  friends.  To  conquer  the 
prejudices  of  the  clergy,  to  win  the  approval  and  financial  sup- 
port of  the  State,  to  venture  upon  that  unknown  ocean  which,  ac- 
cording to  the  beliefs  of  the  age,  was  peopled  with  demons  and 
savage  beasts  of  frightful  shape,  and  from  which  there  was  no 
possibility  of  return,  required  the  zeal  of  Peter  the  Hermit,  the 
chivalric  courage  of  the  Cid,  and  the  imagination  of  Dante.  Co- 
lumbus belonged  to  that  high  order  of  cranks  who  confidently 
walk  where  "angels  fear  to  tread,"  and  often  become  the  bene- 
factors of  their  country  or  their  kind. 

It  was  a  happy  omen  of  the  position  which  woman  was  to 
hold  in  America,  that  the  only  person  who  comprehended  the 
majestic  scope  of  his  plans,  and  the  invincible  quality  of  his  gen- 
ius, was  the  able  and  gracious  Queen  of  Castile.  Isabella  alone 
of  all  the  dignitaries  of  that  age  shares  with  Columbus  the  hon- 
ors of  his  great  achievement.  She  arrayed  her  kingdom  and  her 
private  fortune  behind  the  enthusiasm  of  this  mystic  mariner, 
and  posterity  pays  homage  to  her  wisdom  and  faith. 

The  overthrow  of  the  Mohammedan  power  in  Spain  would 
have  been  a  forgotten  scene  in  one  of  the  innumerable  acts  in 
the  grand  drama  of  history,  had  not  Isabella  conferred  immor- 
tality upon  herself,  her  husband,  and  their  dual  crown  by  her 
recognition  of  Columbus.  The  devout  spirit  of  the  queen  and  the 
high  purpose  of  the  explorer  inspired  the  voyage,  subdued  the 


COLUMBIAN  ORATION  73 

mutinous  crew,  and  prevailed  over  the  raging  storms.  They  cov- 
ered with  the  divine  radiance  of  religion  and  humanity  the  de- 
grading search  for  gold,  and  the  horrors  of  its  quest,  which  filled 
the  first  century  of  conquest  with  every  form  of  lust  and  greed. 

The  mighty  soul  of  the  great  admiral  was  undaunted  by  the 
ingratitude  of  princes  and  the  hostility  of  the  people,  by  imprison- 
ment and  neglect.  He  died  as  he  was  securing  the  means  and 
preparing  a  campaign  for  the  rescue  of  the  Holy  Sepulcher  at 
Jerusalem  from  the  infidel.  He  did  not  know  what  time  has  re- 
vealed, that  while  the  mission  of  the  crusaders,  of  Godfrey  of 
Bouillon  and  Richard  of  the  Lion  Heart,  was  a  bloody  and  fruit- 
less romance,  the  discovery  of  America  was  the  salvation  of  the 
world.  The  one  was  the  symbol,  the  other  the  spirit;  the  one 
death,  the  other  life.  The  tomb  of  the  Saviour  was  a  narrow  and 
empty  vault,  precious  only  for  its  memories  of  the  supreme 
tragedy  of  the  centuries,  but  the  new  continent  was  to  be  the  home 
and  temple  of  the  living  God. 

The  rulers  of  the  Old  World  began  with  partitioning  the  New. 
To  them  the  discovery  was  expansion  of  Empire,  and  grandeur 
to  the  throne.  Vast  territories,  whose  properties  and  possibili- 
ties were  little  understood,  and  whose  extent  was  greater  than 
the  kingdoms  of  the  sovereigns,  were  the  gifts  to  court  favorites 
and  the  prizes  of  royal  approval.  But  individual  intelligence  and 
independent  conscience  found  here  haven  and  refuge.  They  were 
passengers  upon  the  caravels  of  Columbus,  and  he  was  uncon- 
sciously making  for  the  port  of  civil  and  religious  liberty.  Think- 
ers who  believed  men  capable  of  higher  destinies  and  large  re- 
sponsibilities, and  pious  people  who  preferred  the  Bible  to  that 
union  of  Church  and  State  where  each  serves  the  other  for  the 
temporal  benefit  of  both,  fled  to  these  distant  and  hospitable  lands 
from  intolerable  and  hopeless  oppression  at  home.  It  required 
three  hundred  years  for  the  people  thus  happily  situated  to  un- 
derstand their  own  powers  and  resources,  and  to  break  bonds 
which  were  still  reverenced  or  loved,  no  matter  how  deeply  they 
wounded  or  how  hard  they  galled. 

The  nations  of  Europe  were  so  completely  absorbed  in  dy- 
nastic difficulties  and  devastating  wars,  with  diplomacy  and  am- 
bitions, that  if  they  heard  of  they  did  not  heed  the  growing  demo- 
cratic spirit  and  intelligence  in  their  American  Colonies.  To  them 
these  provinces  were  sources  of  revenue,  and  they  never  dreamed 


74  ORATIONS   AND   MEMORIAL  ADDRESSES 

that  they  were  also  schools  of  liberty.  That  it  exhausted  three 
centuries  under  the  most  favorable  conditions  for  the  evolution 
of  freedom  on  this  continent,  demonstrates  the  tremendous 
strength  of  custom  and  heredity  when  sanctioned  and  sanctified 
by  religion.  The  very  chains  which  fettered  became  inextricably 
interwoven  with  the  habits  of  life,  the  associations  of  childhood, 
the  tenderest  ties  of  the  family,  and  the  sacred  offices  of  the 
Church  from  the  cradle  to  the  grave.  It  clearly  proves  that  if 
the  people  of  the  Old  World  and  their  descendants  had  not  pos- 
sessed the  opportunities  afforded  by  the  New  for  their  emancipa- 
tion, and  mankind  had  never  experienced  and  learned  the  Ameri- 
can example,  they  would  still  be  struggling  with  mediaeval  prob- 
lems, instead  of  living  in  the  light  and  glory  of  nineteenth  cen- 
tury conditions. 

The  northern  continent  was  divided  between  England,  France, 
and  Spain,  and  the  southern  between  Spain  and  Portugal.  France, 
wanting  the  capacity  for  colonization,  which  still  character- 
izes her,  gave  up  her  western  possessions  and  left  the  En- 
glish, who  have  the  genius  of  universal  empire,  masters  of  North 
America.  The  development  of  the  experiment  in  the  English 
domain  makes  this  day  memorable.  It  is  due  to  the  wisdom  and 
courage,  the  faith  and  virtue  of  the  inhabitants  of  this  territory 
that  government  of  the  people,  for  the  people,  and  by  the  people 
was  inaugurated,  and  has  become  a  triumphant  success.  The 
Puritan  settled  in  New  England  and  the  Cavalier  in  the  South. 
They  represented  the  opposites  of  spiritual  and  temporal  life  and 
opinions.  The  processes  of  liberty  liberalized  the  one  and  ele- 
vated the  other.  Washington  and  Adams  were  the  new  types. 
Their  union  in  a  common  cause  gave  the  world  a  republic  both 
stable  and  free.  It  possessed  conservatism  without  bigotry,  and 
liberty  without  license.  It  founded  institutions  strong  enough 
to  resist  revolution,  and  elastic  enough  for  indefinite  expansion 
to  meet  the  requirements  in  government  of  ever  enlarging  areas 
of  population,  and  the  needs  of  progress  and  growth.  It  was 
nurtured  by  the  toleration  and  patriotism  which  bound  together 
in  a  common  cause  the  Puritans  of  New  England  and  the  Catho- 
lics of  Maryland,  the  Dutch  Reformers  of  New  York  and  the 
Huguenots  of  South  Carolina,  the  Quakers  and  Lutherans  of 
Pennsylvania,  and  the  Episcopalians,  Methodists,  Presbyterians, 


COLUMBIAN  ORATION  75 

Baptists,  and  religionists  of  all  the  opposite  opinions  in  the  other 
Colonies. 

The  Mayflower  with  the  Pilgrims  and  a  Dutch  ship  laden 
with  African  slaves  were  on  the  ocean  at  the  same  time,  the  one 
sailing  for  Massachusetts,  the  other  for  Virginia.  This  company 
of  saints  and  first  cargo  of  slaves,  represented  the  forces  which 
were  to  peril  and  rescue  free  government.  The  slaver  was  the 
product  of  the  commercial  spirit  of  Great  Britain  and  the  greed 
of  the  times  to  stimulate  production  in  the  Colonies.  The  men 
who  wrote  in  the  cabin  of  the  Mayflower  the  first  charter  of  free- 
dom, a  government  of  just  and  equal  laws,  were  a  little  band  of 
protestants  against  every  form  of  injustice  and  tyranny.  The 
leaven  of  their  principles  made  possible  the  Declaration  of  In- 
dependence, liberated  the  slaves,  and  founded  the  free  common- 
wealths which  form  the  Republic  of  the  United  States. 

Platforms  of  principles,  by  petition  or  protest  or  statement, 
have  been  as  frequent  as  revolts  against  established  authority. 
They  are  a  part  of  the  political  literature  of  all  nations.  The 
Declaration  of  Independence,  proclaimed  at  Philadelphia,  July 
Fourth,  1776,  is  the  only  one  of  them  which  arrested  the  atten- 
tion of  the  world  when  it  was  published,  and  has  held  its  undi- 
vided interest  ever  since.  The  vocabulary  of  the  equality  of 
man  had  been  in  familiar  use  by  philosophers  and  statesmen  for 
ages.  It  expressed  noble  sentiments,  but  their  application  was 
limited  to  classes  or  conditions.  The  masses  cared  little  for 
them  nor  remembered  them  long.  Jefferson's  superb  crystalliza- 
tion of  the  popular  opinion,  that  "all  men  are  created  equal,  that 
they  are  endowed  by  their  Creator  with  certain  inalienable 
rights,  that  among  these  are  life,  liberty,  and  the  pursuit  of  happi- 
ness," had  its  force  and  effect  in  being  the  deliberate  utterance 
of  the  people.  It  swept  away  in  a  single  sentence  kings  and  no- 
bles, peers  and  prelates.  It  was  Magna  Charta  and  the  Petition 
of  Rights  planted  in  the  virgin  soil  of  the  American  wilderness, 
and  bearing  richer  and  riper  fruit.  Under  its  vitalizing  influence 
upon  the  individual,  the  farmer  left  his  plow  in  the  furrow,  the 
lawyer  his  books  and  briefs,  the  merchant  his  shop,  and  the  work- 
man his  bench,  to  enlist  in  the  patriot  army.  They  were  fighting 
for  themselves  and  their  children.  They  embodied  the  idea  in 
their  Constitution  in  the  immortal  words  with  which  that  great 


76  ORATIONS   AND   MEMORIAL   ADDRESSES 

instrument  of  liberty  and  order  began :  "We,  the  people  of  the 
United  States,  do  ordain." 

The  scope  and  limitations  of  this  idea  of  freedom  have  neither 
been  misinterpreted  nor  misunderstood.  The  laws  of  nature,  in 
their  application  to  the  rise  and  recognition  of  men  according 
to  their  mental,  moral,  spiritual,  and  physical  endowments,  are 
left  undisturbed.  But  the  accident  of  birth  gives  no  rank  and 
confers  no  privilege.  Equal  rights  and  common  opportunity 
for  all  have  been  the  spurs  of  ambition  and  the  motors  of  prog- 
ress. They  have  established  the  common  schools,  and  built  the 
public  libraries.  A  sovereign  people  have  learned  and  enforced 
the  lesson  of  free  education.  The  practice  of  government  is 
itself  a  liberal  education.  People  who  make  their  own  laws 
need  no  lawgivers.  After  a  century  of  successful  trial,  the  sys- 
tem has  passed  the  period  of  experiment,  and  its  demonstrated 
permanency  and  power  are  revolutionizing  the  governments  of 
the  world.  It  has  raised  the  largest  armies  of  modern  times  for 
self-preservation,  and  at  the  successful  termination  of  the  war 
returned  the  soldiers  to  the  pursuits  of  peace.  It  has  so  adjusted 
itself  to  the  pride  and  patriotism  of  the  defeated  that  they  vie 
with  the  victors  in  their  support  of  and  enthusiasm  for  the  old  flag 
and  our  common  country.  Imported  anarchists  have  preached 
their  baleful  doctrines,  but  have  made  no  converts.  They  have 
tried  to  inaugurate  a  reign  of  terror  under  the  banner  of  the  vio- 
lent seizure  and  distribution  of  property,  only  to  be  defeated,  im- 
prisoned, and  executed  by  the  law  made  by  the  people  and  en- 
forced by  juries  selected  from  the  people,  and  judges  and 
prosecuting  officers  elected  by  the  people.  Socialism  finds  dis- 
ciples only  among  those  who  were  its  votaries  before  they  were 
forced  to  fly t  from  their  native  land,  but  it  does  not  take  root  upon 
American  soil.  The  State  neither  supports  nor  permits  taxation 
to  maintain  the  Church.  The  citizen  can  worship  God  according 
to  his  belief  and  conscience,  or  he  may  neither  reverence  nor 
recognize  the  Almighty.  And  yet  religion  has  flourished, 
churches  abound,  the  ministry  is  sustained,  and  millions  of  dol- 
lars are  contributed  annually  for  the  evangelization  of  the  world. 
The  United  States  is  a  Christian  country,  and  a  living  and  prac- 
tical Christianity  is  the  characteristic  of  its  people. 

Benjamin  Franklin,  philosopher  and  patriot,  amused  the  jaded 
courtiers  of  Louis  XVI.  by  his  talks  about  liberty,  and  entertained 


COLUMBIAN  ORATION  77 

the  scientists  of  France  by  bringing  lightning  from  the  clouds. 
In  the  reckoning  of  time,  the  period  from  Franklin  to  Morse  and 
from  Morse  to  Edison  is  but  a  span,  and  yet  it  marks  a  material 
development  as  marvelous  as  it  has  been  beneficent.  The  world 
has  been  brought  into  contact  and  sympathy.  The  electric  cur- 
rent thrills  and  unifies  the  people  of  the  globe.  Power  and  pro- 
duction, highways  and  transports,  have  been  so  multiplied  and 
improved  by  inventive  genius  that  within  the  century  of  our  In- 
dependence sixty- four  millions  of  people  have  happy  homes  and 
improved  conditions  within  our  borders.  We  have  accumulated 
wealth  far  beyond  the  visions  of  the  Cathay  of  Columbus  or  the 
El  Dorado  of  De  Soto.  But  the  farmers  and  freeholders,  the 
savings-banks  and  shops,  illustrate  its  universal  distribution.  The 
majority  are  its  possessors  and  administrators.  In  housing  and 
living,  in  the  elements  which  make  the  toiler  a  self-respecting 
and  respected  citizen,  in  avenues  of  hope  and  ambition  for  chil- 
dren, in  all  that  gives  broader  scope  and  keener  pleasure  to  exist- 
ence, the  people  of  this  Republic  enjoy  advantages  far  beyond 
those  of  other  lands.  The  unequaled  and  phenomenal  progress 
of  the  country  has  opened  wonderful  opportunities  for  making 
fortunes,  and  stimulated  to  madness  the  desire  and  rush  for  the 
accumulation  of  money.  Material  prosperity  has  not  debased 
literature  nor  debauched  the  press;  it  has  neither  paralyzed  nor 
repressed  intellectual  activity.  American  science  and  letters  have 
received  rank  and  recognition  in  the  older  centers  of  learning. 
The  demand  for  higher  education  has  so  taxed  the  resources  of 
the  ancient  universities  as  to  compel  the  foundation  and  liberal 
endowment  of  colleges  all  over  the  Union.  Journals,  remark- 
able for  their  ability,  independence,  and  power,  find  their  strength, 
not  in  the  patronage  of  government  or  the  subsidies  of  wealth, 
but  in  the  support  of  a  nation  of  newspaper  readers.  The  hum- 
blest and  poorest  person  has,  in  periodicals  whose  price  is  counted 
in  pennies,  a  library  larger,  fuller,  and  more  varied  than  was  with- 
in the  reach  of  the  rich  in  the  time  of  Columbus. 

The  sum  of  human  happiness  has  been  infinitely  increased  by 
the  millions  from  the  Old  World  who  have  improved  their  con- 
ditions in  the  New,  and  the  returning  tide  of  lesson  and  exper- 
ience has  incalculably  enriched  the  Fatherlands.  The  divine  right 
of  kings  has  taken  its  place  with  the  instruments  of  medieval 
torture  among  the  curiosities  of  the  antiquary.    Only  the  shadow 


78  ORATIONS   AND    MEMORIAL   ADDRESSES 

of  kingly  authority  stands  between  the  government  of  themselves, 
by  themselves,  and  the  people  of  Norway  and  Sweden.  The  union 
in  one  Empire  of  the  states  of  Germany  is  the  symbol  of  Teu- 
tonic power  and  the  hope  of  German  liberalism.  The  petty  des- 
potisms of  Italy  have  been  merged  into  a  nationality  which  has 
centralized  its  authority  in  its  ancient  capitol  on  the  hills  of  Rome. 
France  was  rudely  roused  from  the  sullen  submission  of  centuries 
to  intolerable  tyranny  by  her  soldiers  returning  from  service  in 
the  American  revolution.  The  wild  orgies  of  the  Reign  of  Terror 
were  the  revenges  and  excesses  of  a  people  who  had  discovered 
their  power,  but  were  not  prepared  for  its  beneficent  use.  She 
fled  from  herself  into  the  arms  of  Napoleon.  He  too  was  a  prod- 
uct of  the  American  experiment.  He  played  with  kings  as  with 
toys,  and  educated  France  for  liberty.  In  the  processes  of  her 
evolution  from  darkness  to  light,  she  tried  Bourbon,  and  Orlean- 
ist.  and  the  third  Napoleon,  and  cast  them  aside.  Now  in  the  full- 
ness of  time,  and  through  the  training  in  the  school  of  hardest 
experience,  the  French  people  have  reared  and  enjoy  a  perman- 
ent Republic.  England  of  the  Mayflower  and  of  James  First, 
England  of  George  Third  and  of  Lord  North,  has  enlarged  suf- 
frage and  is  to-day  animated  and  governed  by  the  democratic 
spirit.  She  has  her  throne,  admirably  occupied  by  one  of  the 
wisest  of  sovereigns  and  best  of  women,  but  it  would  not  survive 
one  dissolute  and  unworthy  successor.  She  has  her  hereditary 
Peers,  but  the  House  of  Lords  will  be  brushed  aside  the  moment 
it  resists  the  will  of  the  people. 

The  time  has  arrived  for  both  a  closer  union  and  greater  dis- 
tance between  the  Old  World  and  the  New.  The  former  indis- 
criminate welcome  to  our  prairies,  and  the  present  invitation  to 
these  palaces  of  art  and  industry,  mark  the  passing  period.  Un- 
watched  and  unhealthy  immigration  can  no  longer  be  permitted 
to  our  shores.  We  must  have  a  national  quarantine  against  dis- 
ease, pauperism,  and  crime.  We  do  not  want  candidates  for  our 
hospitals,  our  poorhouses,  or  our  jails.  We  cannot  admit  those 
who  come  to  undermine  our  institutions  or  subvert  our  laws.  But 
we  will  gladly  throw  wide  our  gates  for,  and  receive  with  open 
arms,  those  who  by  intelligence  and  virtue,  by  thrift  and  loyalty, 
are  worthy  of  receiving  the  equal  advantages  of  the  priceless 
gift  of  American  citizenship.  The  spirit  and  object  of  this  ex- 
hibition are  peace  and  kinship. 


COLUMBIAN  ORATION  79 

Three  millions  of  Germans,  who  are  among  the  best  citizens 
of  the  Republic,  send  greeting  to  the  Fatherland,  their  pride  in 
its  glorious  history,  its  ripe  literature,  its  traditions  and  associa- 
tions. Irish,  equal  in  number  to  those  who  still  remain  upon  the 
Emerald  Isle,  who  have  illustrated  their  devotion  to  their  adopted 
country  on  many  a  battlefield,  fighting  for  the  Union  and  its  per- 
petuity, have  rather  intensified  than  diminished  their  love  for  the 
land  of  the  shamrock,  and  their  sympathy  with  the  aspirations 
of  their  brethren  at  home.  The  Italian,  the  Spaniard,  and  the 
Frenchman ;  the  Norwegian,  the  Swede,  and  the  Dane ;  the  Eng- 
lish, the  Scotch,  and  the  Welsh,  are  none  the  less  loyal  and  de- 
voted Americans  because  in  this  congress  of  their  kin  the  tendrils 
of  affection  draw  them  closer  to  the  hills  and  valleys,  the  legends 
and  the  loves  associated  with  their  youth. 

Edmund  Burke,  speaking  in  the  British  Parliament  with  pro- 
phetic voice,  said:  "A  great  revolution  has  happened — a  revo- 
lution made,  not  by  chopping  and  changing  of  power  in  any  of 
the  existing  states,  but  by  the  appearance  of  a  new  state,  of  a 
new  species,  in  a  new  part  of  the  globe.  It  has  made  as  great  a 
change  in  all  the  relations  and  balances  and  gravitations  of  power 
as  the  appearance  of  a  new  planet  would  in  the  system  of  a  solar 
world."  Thus  was  the  humiliation  of  our  successful  revolt  tem- 
pered to  the  Motherland  by  pride  in  the  State  created 
by  her  children.  If  we  claim  heritage  in  Bacon,  Shake- 
speare, and  Milton,  we  also  acknowledge  that  it  was  for  liberties 
guaranteed  Englishmen  by  sacred  charters  our  fathers  triumph- 
antly fought.  While  wisely  rejecting  throne  and  caste  and  privi- 
lege and  an  Established  Church  in  their  new-born  state,  they 
adopted  the  substance  of  English  liberty  and  the  body  of  English 
law.  Closer  relations  with  England  than  with  other  lands,  and  a 
common  language  rendering  easy  interchanges  of  criticisms  and 
epithet,  sometimes  irritate  and  offend,  but  the  heart  of  republican 
America  beats  with  responsive  pulsations  to  the  hopes  and  as- 
pirations of  the  people  of  Great  Britain. 

The  grandeur  and  beauty  of  this  spectacle  are  the  eloquent 
witnesses  of  peace  and  progress.  The  Parthenon  and  the  cathe- 
dral exhausted  the  genius  of  the  ancient  and  the  skill  of  the 
medieval  architects  in  housing  the  statue  or  spirit  of  Deity.  In 
their  ruins  or  their  antiquity  they  are  mute  protests  against  the 
merciless  enmity  of  nations,  which  forced  art  to  flee  to  the  altar 


80  ORATIONS   AND   MEMORIAL  ADDRESSES 

for  protection.  The  United  States  welcome  the  sister  republics 
of  the  southern  and  northern  continents,  and  the  nations  and 
peoples  of  Europe  and  Asia,  of  Africa  and  Australia,  with  the 
products  of  their  lands,  of  their  skill,  and  of  their  industry,  to 
this  city  of  yesterday,  yet  clothed  with  royal  splendor  as  the 
Queen  of  the  Great  Lakes.  The  artists  and  architects  of  the  coun- 
try have  been  bidden  to  design  and  erect  the  buildings  which  shall 
fitly  illustrate  the  height  of  our  civilization  and  the  breadth  of 
our  hospitality.  The  peace  of  the  world  permits  and  protects 
their  efforts  in  utilizing  their  powers  for  man's  temporal  wel- 
fare. The  result  is  this  Park  of  Palaces.  The  originality  and 
boldness  of  their  conceptions,  and  the  magnitude  and  harmony  of 
their  creations,  are  the  contributions  of  America  to  the  oldest  of 
the  arts  and  the  cordial  bidding  of  America  to  the  peoples  of  the 
earth  to  come  and  bring  the  fruitage  of  their  age  to  the  boundless 
opportunities  of  this  unparalleled  exhibition. 

If  interest  in  the  affairs  of  this  world  is  vouchsafed  to  those 
who  have  gone  before,  the  spirit  of  Columbus  hovers  over  us  to- 
day. Only  by  celestial  intelligence  can  it  grasp  the  full  signifi- 
cance of  this  spectacle  and  ceremonial. 

From  the  first  century  to  the  fifteenth  counts  for  little  in  the 
history  of  progress,  but  in  the  period  between  the  fifteenth  and 
the  twentieth  are  crowded  the  romance  and  reality  of  human  de- 
velopment. Life  has  been  prolonged,  and  its  enjoyment  intensi- 
fied. The  powers  of  the  air  and  the  water,  the  resistless  force 
of  the  elements,  which  in  the  time  of  the  discoverer  were  the 
visible  terrors  of  the  wrath  of  God,  have  been  subdued  to  the 
service  of  man.  Art  and  luxuries  which  could  be  possessed  and 
enjoyed  only  by  the  rich  and  noble,  the  works  of  genius  which 
were  read  and  understood  only  by  the  learned  few,  domestic  com- 
forts and  surroundings  beyond  the  reach  of  lord  or  bishop,  now 
adorn  and  illuminate  the  homes  of  our  citizens.  Serfs  are  sov- 
ereigns and  the  people  are  kings.  The  trophies  and  splendors  of 
their  reign  are  commonwealths,  rich  in  every  attribute  of  the  great 
states,  and  united  in  a  Republic  whose  power  and  prosperity,  and 
liberty  and  enlightenment,  are  the  wonder  and  admiration  of  the 
world. 

All  hail,  Columbus,  discoverer,  dreamer,  hero,  apostle.  We 
here,  of  every  race  and  country,  recognize  the  horizon  which 
bounded  his  vision  and  the  infinite  scope  of  his  genius.     The 


COLUMBIAN  ORATION 


81 


voice  of  gratitude  and  praise  for  all  the  blessings  which  have  been 
showered  upon  mankind  by  his  adventure  is  limited  to  no  lan- 
guage, but  is  uttered  in  every  tongue.  Neither  marble  nor  brass 
can  fitly  form  his  statue.  Continents  are  his  monuments,  and  un- 
numbered millions,  present  and  to  come,  who  enjoy  in  their  liber- 
ties and  happiness  the  fruits  of  his  faith,  will  reverently  guard 
and  preserve,  from  century  to  century,  his  name  and  fame. 


Vol.  I— £ 


BIRTHDAY  OF  LINCOLN 


ADDRESS  AT  THE  CELEBRATION   OF  THE  BIRTHDAY  OF  ABRAHAM 
LINCOLN,   AT  BURLINGTON,   VERMONT,   FEBRUARY   12,    1 895. 

Ladies  and  Gentlemen  :  The  pleasure  of  appearing  before 
you  this  afternoon  is  great,  but  marred  by  circumstances.  I  had 
supposed  the  occasion  was  to  be  the  usual  recreation  for  a  busy 
man  of  the  after-dinner  speech  which  pleasantly  occupies  the 
mind  without  tiring  it.  To  have  it  transformed  into  an  after- 
noon address  or  oration  means  a  preparation,  or  the  use  of  the 
Horation  method  of  the  file  and  thumb-nail,  and  my  conditions 
made  that  impossible.  You  will  pardon  the  absence  of  formality 
and  accept  the  earnestness  with  which  I  approach  a  subject  so 
grand  in  itself  as  the  hero  whose  memory  we  celebrate,  and  prin- 
ciples so  enduring  and  vivifying  as  those  of  the  party  of  which 
he  is  the  greatest  ornament. 

The  tendency  in  all  times  has  been  for  the  people  to  grow  so 
far  apart  from  their  national  heroes  that  the  hero  becomes  im- 
possible. We  cannot  live  with  perfection;  we  cannot  have  the 
camaraderie  of  personal  communion  with  saints.  The  force  and 
effect  of  continuing  leadership  is  to  be  in  touch  with  the  leader. 
We  have  idealized  already  the  worthies  of  the  revolutionary 
period,  and  especially  Washington,  so  that  they  are  out  of  the 
pale  of  humanity.  To  us  they  never  possessed  the  foibles  and 
weaknesses  common  to  our  race.  I  doubt  if  Washington  ever 
did.  I  had  occasion  at  the  time  of  the  Centennial  to  study  close- 
ly his  character  and  career.  It  was  impossible  to  lower  him  to  any 
plane  where  a  horizontal  view  could  be  had  of  him.  In  the  camp 
and  in  the  Cabinet,  in  the  Continental  Convention  and  around 
the  campfire,  in  the  midst  of  his  soldiers,  or  at  the  mess  with  his 
staff,  he  was  always  the  same  dignified,  majestic,  unapproachable 
figure.  For  the  times  in  which  he  lived,  for  the  mission  to  which 
he  was  destined,  these  lofty  characteristics  were  appropriate.  The 
Revolution  knew  little  of  the  fierce  democracy.  The  classes  and 
the  masses  were  distinctly  defined  and  separated.  The  pride  of 
birth,  of  ancestry  and  landed  proprietorship  was  never  more  dis- 

82 


BIRTHDAY  OF  LINCOLN  83 

tinctly  asserted  and  never  more  generally  recognized.  It  is  prob- 
able that  for  the  purpose  of  bringing  the  wealth  and  the  intelli- 
gence of  the  country  to  the  support  of  the  patriot  cause  it  was 
necessary  that  one  of  this  class  who  was  infinitely  superior  to  his 
fellows,  and  whose  aim  and  ambition  were  only  his  country  and 
its  liberties,  should  lead  the  movement.  The  processes  of  the 
evolution  of  democracy  for  one  hundred  years  had  created  a  con- 
dition where  Washington  would  have  been  a  failure  in  the  Civil 
War.  Abraham  Lincoln,  his  opposite  in  every  respect,  because 
he  was  so  different,  was  the  most  successful  leader  of  any  revo- 
lution of  modern  or  ancient  times. 

As  we  study  the  characteristics  which  made  Lincoln  great  and 
successful,  we  find  them  not  in  the  usual  gifts  of  great  statesmen. 
Others  have  been  more  cultured,  others  have  had  more  genius, 
others  have  had  more  experience  and  training,  but  none  of  any 
time  had  as  the  motive  power  of  every  action  an  indomitable  and 
resistless  moral  force.  You  may  call  it  the  principle  of  natural 
religion,  or  whatever  you  may.  It  was  an  instinct  for  the  right, 
a  comprehension  of  justice,  a  boundless  sympathy  and  compas- 
sion, an  intense  and  yearning  love  for  his  fellows  and  their  wel- 
fare which  knew  neither  rank  nor  race,  but  gathered  within  its 
boundless  charity  all  mankind.  The  force  and  effect  of  this  power 
in  Lincoln  can  be  best  illustrated  by  the  contrast  between  him 
and  his  great  antagonist,  Douglas.  Douglas  was  born  in  Ver- 
mont; about  him  were  all  the  influences  of  this  liberty-loving 
and  intelligent  commonwealth;  his  father  was  a  clergyman,  a 
college  graduate,  a  man  of  brains  and  culture,  and  his  mother 
a  worthy  helpmeet  for  her  minister  husband.  Every  authority 
of  environment  and  atmosphere  was  for  right,  justice,  and  liberty. 
His  struggles  with  poverty  were  not  those  which  enervate  or  de- 
grade, but  those  which  inspire  men  of  fiber,  energy,  ambition  and 
genius  to  the  efforts  which  make  a  career.  His  natural  abilities, 
trained  in  the  best  of  schools,  made  him  a  teacher,  a  lawyer,  a 
judge,  a  legislator,  a  senator,  and  the  leader  of  his  party.  It  made 
him  the  ablest  of  debaters  in  the  United  States  Senate,  the  most 
formidable  of  foes  upon  the  platform  in  a  political  campaign,  and 
the  most  adroit  of  politicians  in  framing  issues  which  should  cap- 
ture or  mislead  the  people.  In  any  condition  of  the  country's  af- 
fairs, when  great  moral  questions  were  not  at  issue,  Stephen  A. 
Douglas  would  have  been  President.    Lincoln,  on  the  other  hand, 


84  ORATIONS   AND   MEMORIAL   ADDRESSES 

was  born  in  a  slave  State,  the  son  of  a  poor  white,  and  lived 
during  his  early  youth  in  a  cabin  of  one  room,  under  conditions 
of  abject  poverty  and  ignorance.  His  mother  died,  his  shiftless 
father  moved  to  Indiana,  a  log  cabin  was  erected  which  had 
neither  partitions  nor  floors  and  scarcely  windows  or  doors,  a 
few  acres  were  cleared  to  get  the  bare  necessities  of  life,  and  al- 
most at  the  period  of  manhood  Lincoln  had  no  education,  was 
dressed  in  skins,  was  associated  with  semi-savages  who  relieved 
the  hard  conditions  of  their  lives  by  brutal  debauches  and  equally 
brutal  fights  among  themselves,  and  yet  he  remained  uncontam- 
inated  by  the  drinking,  swearing,  idle  loafers,  roughs  or  thugs 
who  constituted  his  companionship.  His  energies  would  be  shown 
occasionally  with  his  enormous  strength  in  protecting  the  weak 
or  rescuing  the  defeated,  and  a  promise  of  his  future  powers  giv- 
en by  holding  spellbound  at  times  his  rough  auditors  by  his  rus- 
tic eloquence,  or  entertaining  them  at  night  with  his  endless  fund 
of  anecdote,  drollery,  and  mimicry.  An  insatiable  craving  for 
knowledge  led  him  to  learn  to  read  and  to  write.  The  only  books 
within  miles  about  him  were  Robinson  Crusoe,  a  short  history 
of  the  United  States,  Weems's  Life  of  Washington,  and  Bun- 
yan's  Pilgrim's  Progress.  These  he  soon  knew  by  heart.  This 
master  of  the  English  tongue,  this  most  felicitous  of  phrase  mak- 
ers, this  most  eloquent  of  speakers,  framed  his  sentences  and 
formed  his  style  by  writing  compositions  with  charcoal  upon  a 
wooden  shovel  or  shingles  from  the  mill.  A  clerk  in  a  store  on 
starvation  wages,  a  storekeeper  without  capital,  and  his  business 
sold  out  by  the  sheriff,  a  surveyor  earning  ten  or  fifteen  dollars 
a  month,  and  a  lawyer  with  no  other  equipment  than  Blackstone 
and  the  statutes  of  Illinois — such  was  Lincoln  at  a  period  when 
the  accomplished  and  cultured  Douglas  was  already  the  idol  of 
his  State.  And  yet  thus,  on  the  threshold  of  a  career,  with  such 
surroundings,  such  teachings  and  such  impressions,  in  the  midst 
of  a  community  which  drank,  Lincoln  was  a  temperance  man; 
in  the  midst  of  a  community  that  swore,  Lincoln  was  free  from 
blasphemy;  in  the  midst  of  a  community  not  highly  moral,  Lin- 
coln was  as  pure  as  an  angel ;  in  the  midst  of  a  community  which 
regarded  the  negro  as  no  better  than  the  horse  or  the  mule,  Lin- 
coln was  an  abolitionist. 

Sailing  down  the  Mississippi  River  upon  a  flat  boat,  with  a 
crew  composed  of  his  rough  comrades,  who  boasted  they  were 


BIRTHDAY  OF  LINCOLN  85 

half  horse  and  half  alligator,  who  anchored  at  night  for  roystering 
riots  in  the  villages  and  continued  them  when  they  reached  New 
Orleans,  Lincoln  was  apart  from  them,  while  of  them.  He  wan- 
dered one  day  into  the  slave  market  and  saw  a  young  girl  put  up 
at  auction.  He  witnessed  the  brutal  examination  of  her  by  the 
buyers  and  spectators,  the  coarse  jokes  that  were  exchanged  in 
the  crowd  and  the  cynical  beastliness  of  the  auctioneer,  and  the 
slumbering  fire  of  moral  and  religious  wrath  planted  in  him  by 
his  mother,  or  inherited  from  some  saintly  ancestor,  broke  out 
with  the  declaration,  "If  I  live,  the  day  will  come  when  I  will 
hit  slavery  a  blow  from  which  it  shall  perish.,,  That  slave  girl 
on  the  block  aroused  the  moral  forces  within  him  which  kept  him 
from  the  temptations  of  his  environment  and  ma4e  him  the  hero 
and  the  martyr  of  liberty. 

The  peoples  in  all  ages  have  loved  gladiatorial  combats, 
whether  of  the  mind  or  muscle.  The  keen  delight  of  the  Greek 
in  the  contests  of  his  orators,  and  of  the  Roman  in  the  bloody 
fights  of  his  gladiators,  illustrated  the  principle.  The  debate  be- 
tween Douglas,  the  leader  of  his  party  and  inventor  of  the  phrase, 
"popular  sovereignty,"  which  was  to  stand  both  for  the  principle 
and  the  policy  that  would  save  that  party  from  being  over- 
whelmed by  the  rising  spirit  of  liberty  in  the  country,  and  possible 
President  of  the  United  States,  and  a  man  who,  though  unknown, 
excited  interest  because  the  Republican  Party  in  his  State  deemed 
him  worthy  to  be  placed  against  the  champion,  was  a  picture  which 
made  Illinois  the  battle  ground  of  freedom.  If  Lincoln  had  pos- 
sessed less  of  this  controlling  moral  principle — if  he  had  been 
actuated  by  the  same  motives  which  governed  Douglas — if  his 
God  had  been  personal  ambition  rather  than  the  welfare  of  the 
race,  or  the  presidency  rather  than  patriotism — he  would  not 
have  defeated  Douglas.  The  repeal  of  the  Missouri  Compromise 
had  thrown  open  the  territories  of  the  great  Northwest  to  slavery. 
Douglas  had  met  the  rising  tide  of  indignation  and  stemmed  it 
by  a  proposition  which  apparently  left  the  people  of  the  territory 
to  decide  whether  their  institutions  should  be  free  or  slave.  The 
decision  of  the  Supreme  Court  in  the  Dred  Scott  case  had  shown 
that  this  alleged  principle  was  a  flimsy  pretext.  Nevertheless  it 
was  generally  accepted.  The  South  was  committed  to  slavery 
and  regarded  its  extension  as  necessary  to  the  existence  of  the 
system.    The  business  of  the  North  was  bound  up  in  the  preserva- 


86  ORATIONS   AND   MEMORIAL   ADDRESSES 

tion  of  slavery.  The  press  and  the  pulpit  were  largely  with  their 
congregations,  their  constituencies,  and  their  readers.  "Aboli- 
tionist" was  a  term  of  reproach  and  opprobrium.  "Anti-slavery" 
was  little  better.  To  touch  slavery  was  to  touch  the  Union,  and 
to  touch  the  Union  was  to  imperil  the  Republic,  and  so  slavery 
became  the  cornerstone  of  the  Republic.  The  Declaration  of  In- 
dependence was  an  empty  sound  for  Fourth  of  July  declama- 
tions and  assaults  upon  the  monarchical  systems  of  other  coun- 
tries. Lincoln  wrote  his  speech.  He  read  it  to  the  leaders  of  his 
party.  It  was  based  upon  this  thought,  couched  in  these  words, 
"A  house  divided  against  itself  cannot  stand.  I  believe  this  gov- 
ernment cannot  endure  permanently  half  slave  and  half  free.  I 
do  not  expect  the  Union  to  be  dissolved.  I  do  not  expect  the 
house  to  fall,  but  I  expect  it  will  cease  to  be  divided.  It  will  be- 
come all  one  thing  or  all  the  other.  Either  the  opponents  of  slav- 
ery will  arrest  the  further  spread  of  it,  and  place  it  where  the  pub- 
lic mind  shall  rest  in  the  belief  that  it  is  in  the  course  of  ultimate 
extinction;  or  its  advocates  will  push  it  forward,  till  it  shall  be- 
come alike  lawful  in  all  the  States — old  as  well  as  new,  north  as 
well  as  south."  The  leaders  of  the  party  with  one  voice  said, 
"That  speech  defeats  you  and  elects  Douglas."  "Ah !"  said  Lin- 
coln, "I  know  that,  but  I  am  looking  beyond  Douglas  and  beyond 
the  Senatorship.  That  sentiment  appeals  to  the  conscience  of 
the  North  against  the  extension  of  slavery  in  the  territories  and 
against  the  system  of  slavery."  It  was  the  gauntlet  of 
liberty  thrown  into  the  arena  which  began  the  battle  that  ended 
with  the  publication  of  the  Proclamation  of  Emancipation. 

There  never  was  another  such  President,  never  another  such 
ruler  as  Abraham  Lincoln.  He  did  not  represent  hereditary 
privileges,  for  he  came  from  the  plainest  of  the  plain  people;  he 
did  not  represent  heredity,  for  he  had  none ;  he  did  not  represent 
colleges  or  universities,  for  he  knew  them  not ;  he  did  not  repre- 
sent capital  and  great  accumulations,  for  he  had  neither;  but  he 
did  represent  the  toiler  upon  the  farm,  in  the  workshop,  upon 
the  highway,  in  the  factory,  anywhere,  everywhere  where  honest 
men  and  honest  women  were  striving  to  better* their  conditions 
and  to  illustrate  the  dignity  of  labor  and  the  nobility  of  American 
citizenship.  Without  this  touch  with  the  plain  people  his  ability, 
his  genius,  would  have  made  him  distrusted,  for  it  may  be  taken 
as  almost  an  axiom  that  there  is  no  career  for  great  genius  by 


BIRTHDAY  OF  LINCOLN  87 

popular  vote.  He  knew  the  country,  the  limitations  of  his  power, 
how  far  and  how  fast  the  administration  could  go  in  the  great 
struggle,  better  than  the  Cabinet,  or  Congress,  or  journalists,  or 
advisers.  "Call  for  troops  to  suppress  the  rebellion,"  shouted  the 
northern  press,  northern  pulpit,  and  northern  representatives  in 
Congress.  But  Lincoln  said,  with  adoration  for  the  Constitution 
and  its  strict  interpretation  and  for  the  Union,  and  with  the  dread 
of  its  dissolution,  the  flag  must  be  assailed  before  we  can  make 
response.  Against  the  advice  of  every  member  of  his  Cabinet  he 
said,  "Let  us  send  provisions  to  the  beleaguered  United  States 
soldiers  heroically  defending  the  flag  in  Charleston  Harbor."  The 
unarmed  provision  ship  was  driven  back,  the  flag  fired  upon,  the 
fort  captured;  the  plain  people  who  were  his  constituents  then 
understood  the  situation,  and  millions  of  soldiers  responded  to  his 
call. 

Mr.  Greeley  thundered  in  the  Tribune,  Mr.  Sumner  in  the 
Senate,  the  clergymen  in  their  pulpits,  and  the  orators  upon  the 
platform,  that  he  should  destroy  the  confederacy  at  once  by  free- 
ing the  slaves.  He  knew  as  no  other  man  did  the  strength  and 
power  of  the  feeling  which  had  grown  up  in  the  country  of  the 
sort  of  sacredness  that  hedged  about  property  in  slaves.  But 
when  defeat  after  defeat  came,  when  there  was  despair  of  the 
result,  when  the  future  of  the  Republic  looked  dark,  when  the 
people  had  been  educated  to  regard  the  Union  as  more  sacred 
than  slavery,  then  he  promulgated  his  immortal  proclamation. 
Other  Presidents  and  other  rulers  have  deemed  their  full  duty 
performed  in  their  annual  communications  to  their  congresses  or 
their  parliaments,  but  Lincoln  every  day  was  addressing  letters 
by  which  he  was  counseling  and  arguing  with  the  people  upon 
the  questions  of  the  hour,  the  perils  of  the  country,  and  the  du- 
ties and  dangers  that  were  before  him.  Now  he  writes  to  Mr. 
Greeley,  now  to  the  workingmen  of  Manchester,  now  to  the  work- 
ingmen  of  New  York,  now  to  a  State  Convention,  now  to  a  con- 
vocation of  clergymen;  but  always  to  the  people  of  the  United 
States.  Whenever  his  great  brain  and  his  great  heart  welled  up  so 
that  he  seemed  about  to  be  suffocated  by  the  difficulties  of  the  sit- 
uation, and  by  the  impossibility  of  solving  his  problems,  Lincoln 
poured  his  troubles  out  to  the  people  of  the  United  States,  and 
asked  for  their  sympathy,  their  advice,  and  their  support.  The 
appeal  was  never  made  in  vain.     Politicians  raved  against  him, 


88  ORATIONS   AND   MEMORIAL   ADDRESSES 

and  said  that  his  utterances  were  unwise  and  his  actions  indis- 
creet. Earnest  men,  who  had  the  cause  at  heart,  called  conven- 
tions to  prevent  his  renomination,  and  then  to  defeat  him  for  re- 
election, but  the  plain  people  with  whom  he  had  been  talking  as 
with  familiar  friends,  whose  homes  he  had  entered,  at  whose 
firesides  he  had  sat,  by  whose  bedsides  he  had  talked,  in  whose 
inmost  circles  and  in  the  midst  of  whose  family  prayers  he  had 
been,  responded  with  an  overwhelming  support  which  gave  him 
again  the  Presidency,  and  practically  by  the  unanimous  voice  of 
the  people. 

Lincoln  knew  nothing  of  the  dignity,  as  expressed  in  manner 
and  dress,  which  belongs  to  high  station.  The  instinctive  sense 
of  propriety  and  consciousness  of  superiority  and  greatness  which 
hedged  Washington  was  absent  in  him.  In  our  time,  in  the  fierce 
light  of  our  publicity,  with  the  scintillations  of  electricity  render- 
ing brilliant  every  nook  and  corner  and  cranny  of  a  public  man's 
existence  and  thought,  the  temptations  to  enlarge  the  wreath  which 
the  people  place  upon  his  head  are  almost  irresistible.  The  test 
of  greatness  is  the  wearing  of  the  halo.  It  destroyed  Napoleon, 
it  ruined  two-thirds  of  the  generals  in  our  Civil  War,  it  has  driven 
great  and  little  politicians,  from  the  birth  of  our  Republic  until 
now,  into  obscurity.  But  Lincoln  was  never  troubled  as  to  the 
size  of  his  head.  He  never  overestimated  nor  underestimated 
who  he  was,  what  he  was,  nor  what  he  represented.  He  never 
forgot  from  whence  he  came,  and  never  lost  sight  of  the  fact  that 
except  by  the  accident  of  position  he  was  neither  better  nor  worse 
than  those  who  placed  him  in  the  presidential  chair.  He  pos- 
sessed what  no  other  ruler  ever  did,  or,  if  he  did,  dared  to  use, 
the  power  of  humor.  The  portentous  solemnity  of  our  public 
men  pervades  our  political  atmosphere,  even  to  depressing  melan- 
choly. The  less  the  statesman  knows  the  more  solemn  he  is,  the 
thicker  his  head,  the  more  owlish  his  bearing.  A  President  of  the 
United  States  once  said  to  me:  "No  man  can  ever  succeed  in 
this  country  who  gives  rein  to  his  humor  or  his  fun.  The  people 
no  longer  look  upon  him  as  a  serious  man,  and  only  serious  men 
are  recognized  in  the  consideration  of  public  affairs/' 

When  Mr.  Lincoln  came  to  Washington  he  was  unknown  to 
the  great  leaders  of  the  party.  He  had  the  courage,  which  only 
a  very  great  man  can  have,  to  summon  them  all  into  his  Cabinet. 
The  rule  has  been  growing  to  invite  only  lesser  men  into  the 


BIRTHDAY  OF  LINCOLN  89 

Cabinet.  In  modern  times  as  soon  as  the  President  has  selected 
his  constitutional  advisers  the  whole  detective  agency  of  the  news- 
papers is  set  to  work  to  find  out  who  they  are,  whence  they  come, 
and  what  they  have  done.  The  village  attorney,  the  village  scribe, 
the  local  philosopher  bound  upon  the  national  platform  with 
theories  as  broad  as  their  environment,  and  as  useful.  The  pro- 
cess has  the  merit  of  elevating  the  chief  by  the  depreciation  of 
his  subordinates.  Lincoln  believed  in  most  harmonious  pictures. 
Napoleon,  surrounded  by  the  Marshals  of  France,  every  one  of 
them  a  hero  of  a  great  battle,  every  one  of  them  the  demonstrated 
leader  of  a  mighty  army,  himself  the  acknowledged  chief  and 
leader  of  them  all,  formed  a  picture  that  commanded  the  admira- 
tion of  his  time  and  has  arrested  the  attention  of  posterity.  This 
Illinois  lawyer,  orator,  and  statesman  called  to  his  aid  the  men 
who  had  demonstrated  in  the  Senate,  in  the  House,  and  in  the 
Courts  that  they  were  the  leaders  of  men.  What  a  spectacle! 
This  ungainly  giant  of  the  West,  angular  and  awkward,  uncouth 
of  manner,  inelegant  of  address,  with  the  courtly  Seward  for 
Secretary  of  State,  the  stately  Chase  for  Secretary  of  the  Treas- 
ury, the  worldly,  dominant  and  shrewd  Cameron  for  Secretary 
of  War,  and  the  imperious  Stanton  as  his  successor !  Chase  turns 
to  his  friends  and  intimates  that  the  country  has  a  mountebank 
for  President.  Seward,  ever  anxious  to  be  useful,  writes  -a  pri- 
vate note  offering  to  perform  all  the  duties  of  the  Presidency  and 
leave  the  ornaments  of  its  name  and  station  to  Lincoln.  He  re- 
ceives in  reply  a  letter  which  ignores  the  insult  but  says  in  effect, 
"I  will  run  the  administration  and  you  run  your  department,  ex- 
cept when  I  think  that  you  had  better  run  it  in  some  other  way." 
In  less  than  a  year  every  one  of  those  great  leaders  recognized 
that  he  was  in  the  presence  of  his  chief  and  superior. 

Lincoln  under  other  conditions  might  have  made  a  great  play- 
wright, or  he  might  have  been  a  great  actor.  He  was  uncon- 
sciously dramatic.  His  disappearance  at  Harrisburg,  on  the  way 
to  Washington  for  the  first  inauguration,  his  reappearance  at  the 
Capital  when  the  thugs  were  waiting  to  assassinate  him,  was  a 
dramatic  surprise  which  excited  the  whole  country.  His  appoint- 
ment of  Hooker  to  the  command  of  the  Army  of  the  Potomac, 
in  a  letter  which  told  him  plainly  his  weaknesses  and  his  failures 
and  the  reasons  why  he  ought  not  to  have  the  responsibility  of 
the  command  placed  upon  him,  was  both  a  comedy  and  a  tragedy. 


90  ORATIONS   AND   MEMORIAL   ADDRESSES 

His  offer  to  McClellan  to  borrow  his  army  if  he  only  knew  what 
to  do  with  it,  as  it  was  apparent  McClellan  did  not  know,  was  one 
of  those  strokes  of  genius  in  expression  which  removed  the  popu- 
lar idol  and  broke  it.  A  messenger  summoned  the  Cabinet  to  the 
White  House.  The  first  to  enter  was  the  stately,  the  dignified, 
the  always  proper  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  Salmon  P.  Chase. 
The  President  looked  up  from  his  book  and  said,  "Mr.  Chase,  I 
was  just  reading  a  most  interesting  work,  which  I  have  enjoyed 
more  than  anything  I  have  met  with  in  a  long  time.  Let  me  read 
you  a  part  of  it."  And  thereupon  he  began  reading  to  him  Arte- 
mus  Ward's  lecture  on  "Wax  Figgers."  The  astonished  and  ir- 
ritated Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  listening  as  the  other  mem- 
bers of  the  Cabinet  gathered,  indignantly  exclaimed,  "Mr.  Presi- 
dent, we  did  not  come  here  to  hear  this  idiotic  nonsense.  For 
what  are  we  summoned?"  Mr.  Lincoln  put  his  hand  in  his  draw- 
er, pulled  out  a  paper  and  said,  "Gentlemen,  I  summoned  you  to 
submit  this  paper ;  not  to  ask  your  advice  as  to  whether  I  should 
issue  it  or  not,  because  I  intend  to  issue  it  no  matter  what  your 
advice  may  be;  but  to  ask  suggestions  as  to  its  form."  And  he 
read  to  them  the  immortal  Proclamation  of  Emancipation;  the 
document  which  was  to  set  four  millions  of  human  beings  free; 
the  document  which  was  to  relieve  the  Constitution  from  the  curse 
of  slavery ;  the  document  which  was  to  make  the  Declaration  of 
Independence  for  the  first  time  in  our  history  the  vital  force  in 
the  principles  and  in  the  policies  of  the  United  States ;  the  docu- 
ment which  was  to  remove  the  stain  which  made  us  a  by-word  and 
reproach  among  civilized  people ;  the  document  which  carried  out 
in  letter  and  spirit  the  vow  made  so  many  years  before  when  the 
flat-boatman  saw  the  girl  sold  in  the  shambles  at  New  Orleans. 
A  few  suggestions  were  made,  a  few  hesitating  protests  against 
the  fierce  determination  of  the  President  for  publication,  an  ear- 
nest request  for  delay  until  a  victory  should  come,  and  that  most 
memorable  of  Cabinet  meetings  in  the  history  of  the  United  States 
adjourned,  and  as  they  filed  out  this  incomprehensible  President 
put  the  Proclamation  of  Emancipation  back  in  the  drawer  and 
resumed  the  reading  of  Artemus  Ward. 

I  remember  as  if  it  were  yesterday  an  afternoon  with  Mr. 
Lincoln.  I  was  but  a  boy,  though  Secretary  of  New  York  State. 
Horatio  Seymour  was  the  Democratic  Governor,  and  the  Legis- 
lature was  Republican.     The  soldiers'  vote  was  to  be  obtained. 


BIRTHDAY  OF  LINCOLN  91 

The  Republican  Legislature  would  not  trust  the  Governor,  and 
the  duty  of  collecting  the  soldiers'  vote  devolved  upon  me.  Mr. 
Lincoln  looked  up  as  I  pressed  my  way  through  the  crowd  in  his 
reception  room  and  said :  "Well,  Depew,  what  can  I  do  for  you  ?" 
I  said :  "Mr.  President,  I  do  not  want  anything ;  I  am  in  Wash- 
ington on  a  mission  from  our  State  to  get  from  the  armies  our 
New  York  soldiers'  vote,  and  I  simply  called  to  pay  my  respects." 
He  said :  "It  is  so  rare  that  anyone  comes  here  who  wants  noth- 
ing, please  wait  and  I  will  get  rid  of  these  people  in  a  few  min- 
utes." The  room  was  soon  emptied — the  faithful  "Jerry"  was 
guarding  the  door — and  on  the  lounge  the  tired  President  was 
rocking  to  and  fro,  holding  his  long  knees  in  his  arms  and  telling 
story  after  story  to  relieve  his  mind,  and  he  said :  "Depew,  they 
say  I  tell  a  great  many  stories.  I  think  I  do.  They  say  I  lower 
the  dignity  of  the  presidential  office  by  these  broad  anecdotes. 
Possibly  that  is  true.  But  I  have  found,  in  the  course  of  a  long 
experience,  that  the  plain  people  of  the  country  take  them  as  they 
are,  and  are  more  easily  reached  and  influenced  and  argued  with 
through  the  medium  of  a  humorous  illustration  than  in  any  other 
way." 

While  I  was  there  Mr.  John  Ganson,  of  Buffalo,  was  a  mem- 
ber of  Congress.  His  face  and  his  head  were  hairless  and  pol- 
ished like  a  billiard  ball.  He  was  a  Democrat,  but  supported  the 
President.  The  conditions  of  the  army  were  very  blue  in  the  East 
and  in  the  West.  Ganson  came  in  one  day  and  said :  "Mr.  Presi- 
dent, I  am  risking  my  re-election  in  supporting  your  war  meas- 
ures. The  campaign  seems  very  unsatisfactory.  Of  course  I  will 
not  give  out  anything  you  tell  me.  What  is  the  situation  at  the 
front?"  Mr.  Lincoln,  in  his  searching  and  sad  way,  looked  at 
him  for  a  moment  as  if  he  was  about  to  reveal  the  secret  of  the 
whole  army,  and  then  tumbled  Ganson  out  of  the  reception  room 
by  saying,  "Ganson,  how  clean  you  shave."  Lord  Lyons,  who 
was  a  bachelor,  went  up  to  announce  the  marriage  of  the  Prin- 
cess Alexandra.  As  is  usual  on  such  occasions,  the  Secretary  of 
State  had  prepared  a  formal  reply  to  the  address  of  the  Eng- 
lish Minister.  Mr.  Lincoln  fumbled  in  his  pockets,  and,  unable 
to  find  Mr.  Seward's  courtly  response,  grasped  Lord  Lyons  cor- 
dially by  the  hand  and  said,  "Lyons,  go  thou  and  do  likewise." 

As  I  sat  in  his  room  that  afternoon,  it  was  not  Congressmen 
who  crowded  about  him,  it  was  not  Senators,  but  it  was  wives 


92  ORATIONS   AND   MEMORIAL  ADDRESSES 

and  mothers  who  wanted  to  get  to  the  front,  and  whom  the  War 
Department  would  not  permit  to  go  where  their  loved  ones  lay 
wounded  in  the  hospitals.  It  was  wives  and  mothers  and  fathers 
pleading  for  husbands  and  sons  condemned  to  be  shot.  Few 
petitioners  for  mercy  ever  left  Lincoln  with  their  petitions  not 
granted.  I  was  dining  one  night  with  General  Sherman,  and,  ex- 
cept Mr.  Choate  and  myself,  all  the  guests  were  commanders  of 
armies  in  the  war.  They  were  all  lamenting  how  Mr.  Lincoln  had 
impaired  discipline  by  pardoning  the  men  who  had  been  court- 
martialed  and  condemned  to  be  shot,  and  the  proceedings  of  the 
court-martial  approved  by  them,  and  finally  Slocum  said,  "Sher- 
man, what  did  you  do?"  That  stern  old  warrior  answered  grim- 
ly, "I  shot  them  first."  But  with  Mr.  Lincoln  it  was  impossible 
to  approve  a  death  warrant.  To  the  father  pleading  for  his  son 
he  gave  a  respite,  and,  when  the  father  wanted  something  more, 
his  answer  was,  "If  your  boy  lives  till  that  sentence  is  carried 
out,  he  will  be  so  old  that  the  world  will  think  Methuselah  was  a 
baby  in  years  when  he  died."  On  his  first  visit  to  General  Grant's 
headquarters  the  driver  of  the  mules  was  arguing  with  his  team 
in  that  picturesque  fashion  which  the  army  teamster  thinks 
can  be  best  understood  by  the  mule.  Mr.  Lincoln's  rebuke  of  the 
blasphemy,  which  he  detested,  was  unique.  "My  friend,"  said 
he,  "are  you  an  Episcopalian?"  "No,  Mr.  President,  I  am  a 
Methodist."  "Oh!"  said  Mr.  Lincoln,  "I  thought  you  were  an 
Episcopalian,  because  my  Secretary  of  State,  Mr.  Seward,  some- 
times talks  that  way,  and  he  is  a  warden  in  the  Episcopal  Church 
in  Auburn." 

It  is  significant  of  our  time  and  of  the  questions  interesting 
to  us,  as  we  celebrate  the  birthday  of  this  saviour  of  the  Repub- 
lic, this  foremost  of  statesmen,  this  plainest  and  most  honest  of 
mortals,  this  most  dignified,  most  humorous,  most  serious,  most 
sad  of  men,  this  most  gentle  of  human  beings,  this  leader  in  his 
time  and  of  all  time  of  the  Republican  Party,  that  his  first  speech 
was  for  a  protective  tariff.  He  was  first,  last,  and  all  the  time 
an  American;  an  American  when  Napoleon,  invading  Mexico, 
would  have  broken  up  the  Union,  an  American  when  Great 
Britain  would  have  interfered  for  the  purpose  of  destroying  the 
Republic — because,  as  Lord  Salisbury  said,  we  kept  shop  and 
were  her  rivals  in  business — an  American  in  his  earnest  devo- 
tion to  the  Union  and  the  Constitution,  an  American  in  his  love 


BIRTHDAY  OF  LINCOLN  93 

of  liberty,  an  American  in  his  belief  that  within  the  borders  of 
the  United  States  should  be  manufactured  all  that  the  people  of 
the  United  States  might  require  for  themselves.  He  loved  the 
Union  above  all  things.  He  was  the  representative  of  the  cult 
which  was  started  by  Daniel  Webster.  The  world  little  knows 
what  it  owes  to  that  great  brain.  "The  Union,  one  and  insepar- 
able, now  and  forever"  was  the  inspiration  of  the  schools.  It 
created  a  mighty  wave  of  unreasoning  worship  of  the  Union. 
Lincoln  absorbed  it,  Lincoln  understood  it.  In  his  inaugural 
address — the  first  one — it  was  the  Union;  in  his  inaugural  ad- 
dress— the  second  one — it  was  the  Union,  in  all  his  letters  and 
speeches  it  was  the  Union.  It  was  the  Union  with  slavery,  or  the 
Union  without  slavery,  but  always  the  Union  of  the  States. 

We  cannot  pass  by  this  celebration,  we  cannot  relegate  again 
to  the  books  and  the  libraries  this  heroic  and  majestic  figure 
without  enforcing  by  his  example  and  teachings  the  sentiment 
of  the  hour.  There  are  always  great  crises  coming  periodically 
in  the  history  of  nations.  The  Revolutionary  War  gave  us  our 
Republic.  The  debates  with  Hayne  and  with  Douglas  gave  us 
the  love  of  union.  The  Civil  War  ended  slavery,  and  now  it  is 
the  mighty  contest  of  industrial  forces,  of  economic  principles,  of 
the  proper  relations  of  the  currency  and  the  credit  of  the  United 
States  to  its  trade  and  credit  in  other  countries,  upon  which  are 
builded  our  hopes  or  our  fears.  We  have  had  a  civil  war  in 
which  no  blood  has  been  shed,  but  there  have  been  more  desolated 
homes,  more  closed  industries,  more  sacrifices  of  property,  more 
ruin  and  misery  than  was  occasioned  by  the  war  from  1861  to 
1865.  This  has  been  caused  by  the  same  forces,  springing 
largely  from  the  same  territory,  coming  largely  from  the  same 
pale  of  intelligence  and  motives  in  different  sections  as  that  which 
precipitated  the  great  struggle.  The  generation  that  followed 
the  Civil  War  knew  what  the  Democratic  Party  in  power  meant, 
and  kept  it  in  the  minority  for  a  quarter  of  a  century.  The  world 
is  fond  of  experiments,  and  experiments  run  in  cycles.  What 
has  been  will  be.  So,  after  thirty  years  we  have  tried  the  Demo- 
cratic Party  in  power  once  more.  We  gave  them  the  Presidency 
and  Congress,  and  we  have  had  repeated,  industrially  and  finan- 
cially, the  experiences  of  the  Democratic  Party  in  power,  as  it 
was  evidenced  in  their  rule  prior  to  i860.  The  Democratic  Party 
stands  for  nothing  national.    Its  principles  in  the  East  are  antag- 


94  ORATIONS   AND   MEMORIAL   ADDRESSES 

onistic  to  its  principles  in  the  West.  Its  ideas  in  the  West  are 
hostile  to  its  ideas  in  the  South,  and  its  views  on  the  Pacific  Coast 
have  no  relations  to  its  principles  or  ideas  or  views  anywhere  else 
in  the  country. 

Mr.  Lincoln  might  have  lived  and  added  to  his  greatness  by 
a  speedier  settlement  of  the  issues  which  arose  out  of  the  Civil 
War.  Mr.  Cleveland  was  President  for  four  years  without 
power,  and  had  he  never  been  re-elected,  with  a  Democratic  Party 
on  his  hands,  he  might,  with  the  halo  which  was  thrown  around 
him,  have  gone  down  to  posterity  as  one  of  the  great  Presidents 
of  the  country.  But  Cleveland  was  re-elected  and  did  have  the 
Democratic  Party  on  his  hands,  and  what  might  have  been  is  not, 
and  Cleveland  is  not  regarded  as  one  of  the  great  Presidents  of 
the  country. 

We  have  won  our  victory.  It  is  the  victory  of  returning 
common  sense,  the  victory  of  experience  over  hope.  We  are  not 
yet  out  of  the  woods.  The  Republican  Party  can  only  hold  the 
country  where  it  is  and  prevent  further  damage  until  it  assumes 
the  responsibilities  of  power.  The  difficulty  with  the  Democracy 
is  not  only  of  inexperience,  but  of  incompetence.  The  evolution 
of  the  student  is  first  his  devotion  to  phrases,  and  the  more  vague 
they  may  be  the  more  wise  they  seem,  and  from  the  phrase  he 
comes  to  theory.  The  theory  makes  him  a  skeptic  in  religion 
and  a  mugwump  in  politics.  Then  he  either  settles  down  to  the 
stern  realities  of  life  and  successful  solutions  of  his  problems,  or 
he  becomes  bankrupt  in  business  and  in  faith.  The  Democratic 
Party  captured  the  country  by  the  phrases  "free  raw  materials," 
"the  tariff  is  a  tax,"  "the  markets  of  the  world."  We  have  lost 
the  markets  of  the  world,  we  have  little  left  to  tax  and  our  raw 
materials  and  manufactured  articles  and  labor  are  all  free,  because 
there  are  so  few  purchasers  or  employers.  We  are  governed  by 
the  party  which  gave  us  the  Gorman  tariff,  which  has  left  solvent 
only  the  business  upon  which  Republican  protection  is  continued, 
the  party  which  reversed  the  good  old  policy  that  you  should  pay 
your  debts  with  money  which  you  earned,  and  adopted  the  new 
one  of  paying  them  with  borrowed  money.  Micawber  is  its 
financial  authority.  That  party  is  suspending  credit  by  the  eye- 
lids and  business  by  the  hair  in  the  effort  to  solve  the  currency 
problem,  which  needs  little  better  solution  than  to  leave  it  alone. 
After  thousands  of  years  of  hopeless  experiments  the  Democratic 


BIRTHDAY  OF  LINCOLN  95 

leaders  are  still  striving  to  square  the  circle  and  lift  one's  self 
over  the  stone  wall  by  the  straps  of  one's  boots;  they  are  still 
striving  to  pay  debts  without  assets ;  still  striving  to  give  money 
where  none  has  been  earned  and  distribute  currency  where  there 
is  no  property  to  exchange  for  it;  still  striving  to  give  value  to 
the  air  and  to  coin  and  mint  theories,  and  they  have  reduced  the 
national  credit  so  that  the  Government  has  to  pay  three  and  three- 
quarters  per  cent,  interest  where  the  citizen  can  borrow  for  three 
per  cent. 

Against  all  this  the  Republican  Party  puts  in  practice  the 
maxims  of  "Poor  Richard"  and  the  principles  which  have  made 
commercial  nations  prosperous  and  commercial  peoples  rich.  This 
is  not  the  time  nor  is  there  occasion  for  despair.  The  hand  of 
the  Republican  engineer  is  on  the  throttle,  and  the  train  can  no 
longer  run  away.  The  conductor  can  stop  the  momentum  or 
side-track  the  cars,  but  the  engineer  will  not  let  him  derail  them. 
The  Republican  House  of  Representatives  is  the  living  protest 
of  the  country  against  paralysis  and  despair,  and  it  will  hold  the 
fort  until  in  1896  the  relief  comes  and  the  country  is  saved.  At 
the  siege  of  Lucknow  a  handful  of  soldiers  were  defending  their 
own  lives  and  the  lives  of  their  wives  and  little  ones  against  the 
hordes  of  Sepoys  about  them.  The  food  was  giving  out,  the 
hunger  belt  was  drawn  closer;  it  seemed  that  the  day  of  relief 
and  salvation  would  never  come.  Suddenly  the  keen  ears  of  the 
Scotch  woman  heard  the  distant  bagpipes,  and  she  shouted: 
"Dinna  ye  hear  the  slogan  ?  It  is  Havelock  and  his  Highlanders." 
"Dinna  ye  hear  the  slogan?"  It  came  in  the  last  election  and 
gave  the  Republicans  the  House  of  Representatives.  "Dinna  ye 
hear  the  slogan  ?"  It  came  from  the  breaking  of  the  solid  South. 
"Dinna  ye  hear  the  slogan?"  It  came  from  Missouri,  from 
Maryland,  from  Tennessee,  from  West  Virginia.  "Dinna  ye 
hear  the  slogan?"  It  is  the  marching  of  the  army  which  an- 
swered once,  "We  are  coming,  Father  Abraham,  three  hundred 
thousand  more,"  to  the  victory  of  1896.  Then  the  Republican 
Senate  will  respond  to  the  Republican  House,  and  the  Republican 
House  will  respond  to  the  Republican  President,  and  the  country 
will  receive  prosperity,  happiness,  and  peace. 


LIBERTY   ENLIGHTENING   THE  WORLD 


ORATION  AT  THE  UNVEILING  OF  THE  STATUE  OF  LIBERTY  ENLIGHT- 
ENING THE  WORLD/  NEW  YORK  HARBOR,  OCTOBER  28,  1 886. 

We  dedicate  this  statue  to  the  friendship  of  nations  and  the 
peace  of  the  world. 

The  spirit  of  liberty  embraces  all  races  in  common  brother- 
hood ;  it  voices  in  all  languages  the  same  needs  and  aspirations. 
The  full  power  of  its  expansive  and  progressive  influence  cannot 
be  reached  until  wars  cease,  armies  are  disbanded,  and  interna- 
tional disputes  are  settled  by  lawful  tribunals  and  the  principles 
of  justice.  Then  the  people  of  every  nation,  secure  from  invasion 
and  free  from  the  burden  and  menace  of  great  armaments,  can 
calmly  and  dispassionately  promote  their  own  happiness  and  pros- 
perity. The  marvelous  development  and  progress  of  this 
Republic  is  due  to  the  fact  that  in  rigidly  adhering  to  the  advice 
of  Washington  for  absolute  neutrality  and  non-interference  in 
the  politics  and  policies  of  other  governments,  we  have  avoided 
the  necessity  of  depleting  our  industries  to  feed  our  armies,  of 
taxing  and  impoverishing  our  resources  to  carry  on  war,  and  of 
limiting  our  liberties  to  concentrate  power  in  our  Government. 
Our  great  civil  strife,  with  all  its  expenditure  of  blood  and 
treasure,  was  a  terrible  sacrifice  for  freedom.  The  results  are  so 
immeasurably  great  that  by  comparison  the  cost  is  insignificant. 
The  development  of  liberty  was  impossible  while  she  was  shackled 
to  the  slave.  The  divine  thought  which  intrusted  to  the  con- 
quered the  full  measure  of  home  rule,  and  accorded  to  them  an 
equal  share  of  imperial  power,  was  the  inspiration  of  God.  With 
sublime  trust  it  left  to  liberty  the  elevation  of  the  freedman  to 
political  rights  and  the  conversion  of  the  rebel  to  patriotic 
citizenship. 

The  rays  from  this  torch  illuminate  a  century  of  unbroken 

*The  statue,  a  colossal  figure  151  feet  high,  formed  of  bronze  plates  on  an  iron  frame- 
work, on  a  granite  pedestal  155  feet  high,  stands  on  Bedloe's  Island  in  New  York  Bay. 
It  represents  a  woman  draped  in  Greek  tunic  and  mantle,  her  head  crowned  with  a  dia- 
dem, holding  a  torch  in  her  uplifted  right  hand.  The  features  are  said  to  be  modeled 
from  the  face  of  the  mother  of  the  sculptor,  Frederic  Auguste  Bartholdi  (1834-1904). 
The   pedestal   is   by   Richard   M.   Hunt    (1828-1895).— Ed. 

96 


LIBERTY  ENLIGHTENING  THE  WORLD  97 

friendship  between  France  and  the  United  States.  Peace  with 
its  opportunities  for  material  progress  and  the  expansion  of  popu- 
lar liberties  send  from  here  a  fruitful  and  noble  lesson  to  all  the 
world.  It  will  teach  the  people  of  all  countries  that  in  curbing 
the  ambitions  and  dynastic  purposes  of  princes  and  privileged 
classes,  and  in  cultivating  the  brotherhood  of  man,  lies  the  true 
road  to  their  enfranchisement.  The  friendship  of  individuals, 
their  unselfish  devotion  to  each  other,  their  willingness  to  die  in 
each  other's  stead,  are  the  most  tender  and  touching  of  human 
records ;  they  are  the  inspiration  of  youth  and  the  solace  of  age ; 
but  nothing  human  is  so  beautiful  and  sublime  as  two  great 
peoples  of  alien  race  and  language  transmitting  down  the  ages  a 
love  begotten  in  gratitude,  and  strengthening  as  they  increase  in 
power  and  assimilate  in  their  institutions  and  liberties. 

The  French  alliance  which  enabled  us  to  win  our  independence 
is  the  romance  of  history.  It  overcame  improbabilities  impossible 
in  fiction,  and  its  results  surpass  the  dreams  of  imagination.  The 
most  despotic  of  kings,  surrounded  by  the  most  exclusive  of 
feudal  aristocracies,  sending  fleets  and  armies  officered  by  the 
scions  of  the  proudest  of  nobilities  to  fight  for  subjects  in  revolt 
and  the  liberties  of  the  common  people,  is  a  paradox  beyond  the 
power  of  mere  human  energy  to  have  wrought  or  solved.  The 
march  of  this  medieval  chivalry  across  our  States — respecting 
persons  and  property  as  soldiers  never  had  before;  never  taking 
an  apple  or  touching  a  fence  rail  without  permission  and  payment ; 
treating  the  ragged  Continentals  as  if  they  were  knights  in  armor 
and  of  noble  ancestry;  captivating  our  grandmothers  by  their 
courtesy  and  our  grandfathers  by  their  courage — remains  un- 
equaled  in  the  poetry  of  war.  It  is  the  most  magnificent  tribute  in 
history  to  the  volcanic  force  of  ideas  and  the  dynamitic  power 
of  truth,  though  the  crust  of  the  globe  imprison  them.  In  the 
same  ignorance  and  fearlessness  with  which  a  savage  plays  about 
a  powder  magazine  with  a  torch,  the  Bourbon  King  and  his  Court, 
buttressed  by  the  consent  of  centuries  and  the  unquestioned 
possession  of  every  power  of  the  State,  sought  relief  from  cloying 
pleasures,  and  vigor  for  enervated  minds,  in  permitting  and  en- 
couraging the  loftiest  genius  and  the  most  impassioned  eloquence 
of  the  time  to  discuss  the  rights  and  liberties  of  man.  With  the 
orator  the  themes  were  theories  which  fired  only  his  imagination, 
and  with  a  courtier  they  were  pastimes  or  jests.  Neither  speakers 
Vol.  1—7 


98  ORATIONS   AND   MEMORIAL   ADDRESSES 

nor  listeners  saw  any  application  of  these  ennobling  sentiments 
to  the  common  mass  and  groveling  herd,  whose  industries  they 
squandered  in  riot  and  debauch,  and  whose  bodies  they  hurled 
against  battlement  and  battery  to  gratify  ambition  or  caprice. 
But  these  revelations  illuminated  many  an  ingenuous  soul  among 
the  young  aristocracy,  and  with  distorted  rays  penetrated  the 
Cimmerian  darkness  which  enveloped  the  people.  They  bore 
fruit  in  the  heart  and  mind  of  one  youth  to  whom  America  owes 
much  and  France  everything — the  Marquis  de  Lafayette. 

As  the  centuries  roll  by  and  in  the  fulness  of  time  the  rays  of 
Liberty's  torch  are  the  beacon  lights  of  the  world,  the  central 
niches  in  the  earth's  Pantheon  of  Freedom  will  be  filled  by  the 
figures  of  Washington  and  Lafayette.  The  story  of  this  young 
French  noble's  life  is  the  history  of  the  time  which  made  possible 
this  statue,  and  his  spirit  is  the  very  soul  of  this  celebration. 
He  was  the  heir  of  one  of  the  most  ancient  and  noble  families  of 
France;  he  had  inherited  a  fortune  which  made  him  one  of  the 
richest  men  in  his  country ;  and  he  had  enlarged  and  strengthened 
his  aristocratic  position  by  marriage,  at  the  early  age  of  sixteen, 
with  a  daughter  of  the  ducal  house  of  Noailles.  Before  him 
were  pleasure  and  promotion  at  court,  and  the  most  brilliant 
opportunities  in  the  army,  the  state,  and  the  diplomatic  service. 
He  was  a  young  officer  of  nineteen,  stationed  at  Metz,  when  he 
met,  at  the  table  of  his  commander,  the  Duke  of  Gloucester, 
brother  of  George  the  Third.  The  Duke  brought  news  of  an 
insurrection  which  had  broken  out  in  the  American  colonies,  and 
read,  to  the  amazement  of  his  hearers,  the  strange  dogmas  and 
fantastic  theories  which  these  "insurgents,"  as  he  called  them, 
had  put  forth  in  what  they  styled  their  Declaration  of  Independ- 
ence. That  document  put  in  practice  the  theories  which  Jefferson 
had  studied  with  the  French  philosophers.  It  fired  at  once  the 
train  which  they  had  laid  in  the  mind  of  this  young  nobleman  of 
France.  Henceforth  his  life  was  dedicated  to  "Liberty  Enlight- 
ening the  World."  The  American  Commissioners  at  Paris  tried 
to  dissuade  this  volunteer  by  telling  him  that  their  credit  was 
gone,  that  they  could  not  furnish  him  transportation,  and  by 
handing  him  the  dispatches  announcing  the  reverses  which  had 
befallen  Washington,  the  retreat  of  his  disheartened  and  broken 
army  across  New  Jersey,  the  almost  hopeless  condition  of  their 
cause.     But  he  replied  in  these  memorable  words :  "Thus  far  you 


LIBERTY  ENLIGHTENING  THE  WORLD  99 

have  seen  my  zeal  only ;  now  it  shall  be  something  more.  I  will 
purchase  and  equip  a  vessel  myself.  It  is  while  danger  presses 
that  I  wish  to  join  your  fortunes."  The  King  prohibits  his  sail- 
ing— he  eludes  the  guards  sent  for  his  arrest ;  his  family  interpose 
every  obstacle,  and  only  his  heroic  young  wife  shares  his  enthusi- 
asm and  seconds  his  resolution  to  give  his  life  and  fortune  to 
liberty.  When  on  the  ocean  battling  with  the  captain  who  fears 
to  take  him  to  America,  and  pursued  by  British  cruisers  specially 
instructed  for  his  capture,  he  writes  to  her  this  loving  and  pathetic 
letter:  "I  hope  for  my  sake  you  will  become  a  good  American. 
This  is  a  sentiment  proper  for  virtuous  hearts.  Intimately  allied 
to  the  happiness  of  the  whole  human  family  is  that  of  America, 
destined  to  become  the  respectable  and  sure  asylum  of  virtue, 
honesty,  toleration,  equality,  and  of  tranquil  liberty."  Except 
the  Mayflower,  no  ship  ever  sailed  across  the  ocean  from  the  Old 
World  to  the  New  carrying  passengers  of  such  moment  to  the 
future  of  mankind. 

It  is  idle  now  to  speculate  whether  our  fathers  could  have 
succeeded  without  the  French  alliance.  The  struggle  would  un- 
doubtedly have  been  infinitely  prolonged  and  probably  compro- 
mised. But  the  alliance  assured  our  triumph,  and  Lafayette  se- 
cured the  alliance.  The  voyages  of  the  fabled  argosies  of  ancient 
and  the  armadas  and  fleets  of  modern  times  were  commonplace 
compared  with  the  mission  enshrined  in  this  inspired  boy.  He 
stood  before  the  Continental  Congress  and  said :  "I  wish  to  serve 
you  as  a  volunteer  and  without  pay,"  and  at  twenty  took  his  place 
with  Gates  and  Greene  and  Lincoln  as  a  Major-general  in  the 
Continental  Army.  As  a  member  of  Washington's  military 
family,  sharing  with  that  incomparable  man  his  board  and  bed 
and  blanket,  Lafayette  won  his  first  and  greatest  distinction  in 
receiving  from  the  American  chief  a  friendship  closer  than 
that  bestowed  upon  any  other  of  his  compatriots,  and  which 
ended  only  in  death.  The  great  commander  saw  in  the  reckless 
daring  with  which  he  carried  his  wound  to  rally  the  flying  troops 
at  Brandywine,  the  steady  nerve  with  which  he  held  the  column 
wavering  under  a  faithless  general  at  Monmouth,  the  wisdom 
and  caution  with  which  he  maneuvered  inferior  forces  in  the 
face  of  the  enemy,  his  willingness  to  share  every  privation  of 
the  ill-clad  and  starving  soldiery,  and  to  pledge  his  fortune  and 
credit  to  relieve  their  privations,  a  commander  upon  whom  he 


100  ORATIONS   AND   MEMORIAL   ADDRESSES 

could  rely,  a  patriot  whom  he  could  trust,  a  man  whom  he  could 
love. 

The  surrender  of  Burgoyne  at  Saratoga  was  the  first  decisive 
event  of  the  war.  It  defeated  the  British  plan  to  divide  the 
country  by  a  chain  of  forts  up  the  Hudson  and  conquer  it  in 
detail ;  it  inspired  hope  at  home  and  confidence  abroad ;  it  seconded 
the  passionate  appeals  of  Lafayette  and  the  marvelous  diplomacy 
of  Benjamin  Franklin;  it  overcame  the  prudent  counsels  of 
Necker,  warning  the  King  against  this  experiment,  and  won  the 
treaty  of  alliance  between  the  old  Monarchy  and  the  young 
Republic.  Lafayette  now  saw  that  his  mission  was  in  France. 
He  said,  "I  can  help  the  cause  more  at  home  than  here,"  and  asked 
for  leave  of  absence.  Congress  voted  him  a  sword,  and  presented 
it  with  a  resolution  of  gratitude,  and  he  returned  bearing  this 
letter  from  that  convention  of  patriots  to  his  King :  "We  recom- 
mend this  young  nobleman  to  your  Majesty's  notice  as  one  whom 
we  know  to  be  wise  in  council,  gallant  in  the  field,  and  patient 
under  the  hardships  of  war."  It  was  a  certificate  which  Marl- 
borough might  have  coveted,  and  Gustavus  might  have  worn  as 
the  proudest  of  his  decorations.  But  though  King  and  Court  vied 
with  each  other  in  doing  him  honor ;  though  he  was  welcomed  as 
no  Frenchman  had  ever  been  by  triumphal  processions  in  cities 
and  fetes  in  villages,  by  addresses  and  popular  applause,  he  reck- 
oned them  of  value  only  in  the  power  they  gave  him  to  procure 
aid  for  Liberty's  fight  in  America.  "France  is  now  committed 
to  war,"  he  argued,  "and  her  enemy's  weak  point  for  attack  is  in 
America.  Send  there  your  money  and  men."  And  he  returned 
with  the  army  of  Rochambeau  and  the  fleet  of  De  Grasse. 

"It  is  fortunate,"  said  De  Maurepas,  the  Prime  Minister, 
"that  Lafayette  did  not  want  to  strip  Versailles  of  its  furniture 
for  his  dear  Americans,  for  nobody  could  withstand  his  ardor." 
None  too  soon  did  this  assistance  arrive,  for  Washington's  letter 
to  the  American  Commissioners  in  Paris  passed  it  on  the  way, 
in  which  he  made  this  urgent  appeal :  "If  France  delays  a  timely 
and  powerful  aid  in  the  critical  posture  of  our  affairs,  it  will  avail 
us  nothing  should  she  attempt  it  hereafter.  We  are  at  this  hour 
suspended  in  the  balance.  In  a  word,  we  are  at  the  end  of  our 
tether,  and  now  or  never  deliverance  must  come."  General 
Washington  saw  in  the  allied  forces  now  at  his  disposal  that  the 
triumph  of  independence  was  assured.     The  long  dark  night  of 


RATIONS   AND 

ly,  a  patriot  •  trust,  a  i 

urgoyne  at  Saratoga  was  the 
It  defeated  the  British  plan  to 
of  forts  up  the  Hudson  and  c< 
i  hope  at  home  and  confidence  abroad  ;  it  - 
e  appeals  of  Lafayette  and  the  marvelous  diplomacy 
i    Franklin;   it   overcame   the   prudent    counsels   of 
warning  the  King  against  this  experiment,  and  won  the 
)f   alliance  between   the   old   Monarchy   and   the   young 
blic.     Lafayette  now-  saw  that  his  mission  was  in  France, 
aid,  "I  can  help  the  cause  more  at  home  than  here,"  and  asked 
l<  ave  of  absence.    Congress  voted  him  a  sword,  and  presented 
ith  a  resolution  of  gratitude,  and  he  returned  bearing  this 
letter  from  that  convention  of  patriots  to  his  King:  "We  recom- 
:  this  young  nobleman  to  your  Majesty's  notice  as  one  whom 
ncil,  gallant  in  the  field,  and  patient 
under  th<  which  Marl- 

borough 

GEORGE  WASHINGTON 

1 

reek- 
procure 

-   committed 

he  argued,  "and  ak  point  for  attack  is  in 

Send  there  your  men."     And  he  returned 

irmy  of  Rochaml  fleet  of  De  Grasse. 

"It  is   f<  urepas,  the  Prime  Minister, 

"that  Lai  did  not  ip  Versailles  of  its  furniture 

for  his  dear  Americai  could  withstand  his  ardor." 

None  too  soon  did  this  as  rive,  for  Washington's  letter 

tie  American  Comm:  Paris  passed  it  on  the  way, 

ia  which  he  made  this  urgen*  "If  France  delays  a  timely 

powerful  aid  in  the  criti;  ir  affairs,  it  will  avail 

ng  should  she  attemp  -  after.     We  are  at  this  hour 

ed  in  the  balance.     In  a  e  are  at  the  end  of  our 

;id  now   or   never   deliverance   must   come."      General 

saw  in  the  allie»  now  at  his  disposal  that  the 

triumph  of  independence  wa  1     The  long  dark  night  of 


■ 


LIBERTY  ENLIGHTENING  THE  WORLD  101 

doubt  and  despair  was  illuminated  by  the  dawn  of  hope.  The 
material  was  at  hand  to  carry  out  the  comprehensive  plans  so  long 
matured,  so  long  deferred,  so  patiently  kept.  The  majestic 
dignity  which  had  never  bent  to  adversity,  that  lofty  and  awe- 
inspiring  reserve  which  presented  an  impenetrable  barrier  to 
familiarity,  either  in  counsel  or  at  the  festive  board,  so  dissolved 
in  the  welcome  of  these  decisive  visitors  that  the  delighted  French 
and  the  astounded  American  soldiers  saw  Washington  for  the 
first  and  only  time  in  his  life  express  his  happiness  with  all  the 
joyous  effervescence  of  hilarious  youth. 

The  flower  of  the  young  aristocracy  of  France,  in  their  bril- 
liant uniforms,  and  the  farmers  and  frontiersmen  of  America, 
in  their  faded  continentals,  bound  by  a  common  baptism  of  blood, 
became  brothers  in  the  knighthood  of  Liberty.  With  emulous 
eagerness  to  be  first  in  at  the  death,  while  they  shared  the  glory, 
they  stormed  the  redoubts  at  Yorktown,  and  compelled  the  sur- 
render of  Cornwallis  and  his  army.  While  this  practically  ended 
the  war,  it  strengthened  the  alliance  and  cemented  the  friendship 
between  the  two  great  peoples.  The  mutual  confidence  and 
chivalric  courtesy  which  characterized  their  relations  has  no  like 
example  in  international  comity.  When  an  officer  from  General 
Carleton,  the  British  Commander-in-Chief,  came  to  headquarters 
with  an  offer  of  peace  and  independence,  if  the  Americans  would 
renounce  the  French  alliance,  Washington  refused  to  receive  him; 
Congress  spurned  Carleton's  secretary  bearing  a  like  message; 
and  the  States,  led  by  Maryland,  denounced  all  who  entertained 
propositions  of  peace  not  approved  by  France  as  public  enemies. 
And  peace  with  independence  meant  prosperity  and  happiness  to 
a  people  in  the  very  depths  of  poverty  and  despair.  France,  on 
the  other  hand,  though  sorely  pressed  for  money,  said  in  the 
romantic  spirit  which  permeated  this  wonderful  union :  "Of  the 
twenty-seven  millions  of  livres  we  have  loaned  you,  we  forgive 
you  nine  millions  as  a  gift  of  friendship,  and  when  with  years 
there  comes  prosperity  you  can  pay  the  balance  without  interest.,, 

With  the  fall  of  Yorktown  Lafayette  felt  that  he  could  do 
more  for  peace  and  independence  in  the  diplomacy  of  Europe 
than  in  the  war  in  America.  His  arrival  in  France  shook  the 
Continent.  Though  one  of  the  most  practical  and  self-poised  of 
men,  his  romantic  career  in  the  New  World  had  captivated  courts 
and  peoples.     In  the  formidable  league  which  he  had  quickly 


102  ORATIONS   AND   MEMORIAL   ADDRESSES 

formed  with  Spain  and  France,  England  saw  humiliation  and 
defeat,  and  made  a  treaty  of  peace  by  which  she  recognized  the 
independence  of  the  Republic  of  the  United  States. 

In  this  treaty  were  laid  the  deep,  broad,  and  indestructible 
foundations  for  the  great  statue  we  this  day  dedicate.  It  left  to 
the  American  people  the  working  out  of  a  problem  of  self-govern- 
ment. Without  king  to  rule,  or  class  to  follow,  they  were  to  try 
the  experiment  of  building  a  nation  upon  the  sovereignty  of  the 
individual  and  the  equality  of  all  men  before  the  law.  Their  only 
guide,  and  trust,  and  hope  were  God  and  Liberty.  In  the  fra- 
ternal greetings  of  this  hour  sixty  millions  of  witnesses  bear  testi- 
mony to  their  wisdom,  and  the  foremost  and  freest  Government 
in  the  world  is  their  monument. 

The  fight  for  liberty  in  America  was  won.  Its  future  here 
was  threatened  with  but  one  danger — the  slavery  of  the  negro. 
The  soul  of  Lafayette,  purified  by  battle  and  suffering,  saw  the 
inconsistency  and  the  peril,  and  he  returned  to  this  country  to 
plead  with  State  legislatures  and  with  Congress  for  the  liberation 
of  what  he  termed  "my  brethren,  the  blacks."  But  now  the 
hundred  years'  war  for  liberty  in  France  was  to  begin. 

America  was  its  inspiration,  Lafayette  its  apostle,  and  the 
returning  French  army  its  emissaries.  Beneath  the  trees  by  day, 
and  in  the  halls  at  night,  at  Mt.  Vernon,  Lafayette  gathered  from 
Washington  the  Gospel  of  Freedom.  It  was  to  sustain  and  guide 
him  in  after  years  against  the  temptations  of  power  and  the  de- 
spair of  the  dungeon.  He  carried  the  lessons  and  the  grand 
example  through  all  the  trials  and  tribulations  of  his  desperate 
struggle  and  partial  victory  for  the  enfranchisement  of  his  country. 
From  the  ship,  on  departing,  he  wrote  to  his  great  chief,  whom  he 
was  never  to  see  again,  this  touching  good-by:  "You  are  the 
most  beloved  of  all  the  friends  I  ever  had  or  shall  have  anywhere. 
I  regret  that  I  cannot  have  the  inexpressible  pleasure  of  embra- 
cing you  in  my  own  house  and  welcoming  you  in  a  family  where 
your  name  is  adored.  Everything  that  admiration,  respect,  grati- 
tude, friendship,  and  filial  love  can  inspire  is  combined  in  my 
affectionate  heart  to  devote  me  most  tenderly  to  you.  In  your 
friendship  I  find  a  delight  which  no  words  can  express."  His 
farewell  to  Congress  was  a  trumpet-blast  which  resounded  round 
a  world  then  bound  in  the  chains  of  despotism  and  caste.  Every 
government  on  the  Continent  was  an  absolute  monarchy,  and 


LIBERTY  ENLIGHTENING  THE  WORLD  103 

no  language  can  describe  the  poverty  and  wretchedness  of  the 
people.  Taxes  levied  without  law  exhausted  their  property ;  they 
were  arrested  without  warrant  to  rot  in  the  Bastile  without  trial, 
and  were  shot  at  as  game  and  tortured  without  redress  at  the 
caprice  or  pleasure  of  their  feudal  lords.  Into  court  and  camp 
this  message  came  like  the  handwriting  on  the  wall  at  Belshazzar's 
feast.  Hear  his  words :  "May  this  immense  temple  of  freedom 
ever  stand  a  lesson  to  oppressors,  an  example  to  the  oppressed,  a 
sanctuary  for  the  rights  of  mankind ;  and  may  these  happy  United 
States  attain  that  complete  splendor  and  prosperity  which  will 
illustrate  the  blessings  of  their  government,  and  for  ages  to  come 
rejoice  the  departed  souls  of  its  founders."  Well  might  Louis 
the  Sixteenth,  more  far-sighted  than  his  ministers,  exclaim: 
"After  fourteen  hundred  years  of  power  the  old  Monarchy  is 
doomed." 

While  the  principles  of  the  American  Revolution  were  fer- 
menting in  France,  Lafayette,  the  hero  and  favorite  of  the  hour, 
was  an  honored  guest  at  royal  tables  and  royal  camps.     The 
proud  Spaniard  and  the  Great  Frederick  of  Germany  alike  wel- 
comed him,  and  everywhere  he  announced  his  faith  in  government 
founded  on  the  American  idea.     The  financial  crisis  in  the  affairs 
of  King  Louis  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  rising  tide  of  popular 
passion  on  the  other,  compelled  the  summons  of  the  Assembly  of 
Notables  at  Versailles.     All  the  great  officers  of  state,  the  aristoc- 
racy, the  titled  clergy,  the  royal  princes  were  there,  but  no  repre- 
sentative of  the  people.     Lafayette  spoke  for  them,  and,  fearless 
of  the  effort  of  the  brother  of  the  King  to  put  him  down,  he 
demanded  religious  toleration,  equal  taxes,  just  and  equal  admin- 
istration of  the  laws,  and  the  reduction  of  royal  expenditures  to 
fixed  and  reasonable  limits.     This  overturned  the  whole  feudal 
fabric  which  had  been  in  course  of  construction  for  a  thousand 
years.     To  make  effectual  and  permanent  this  tremendous  stride 
toward  the  American  experiment,  he  paralyzed  the  Court  and 
Cabinet  by  the  call   for  a  National  Assembly  of  the  people. 
Through  that  Assembly  he  carried   a  Declaration  of   Rights, 
founded  upon  the  natural  liberties  of  man — a  concession  of  popu- 
lar privilege  never  before   secured  in  the  modern   history  of 
Europe;  and  going  as  far  as  he  believed  the  times  would  admit 
toward  his  idea  of  an  American  Republic,  he  builded  upon  the 
ruins  of  absolutism  a  constitutional  monarchy. 


104  ORATIONS   AND   MEMORIAL   ADDRESSES 

But  French  democracy  had  not  been  trained  and  educated  in 
the  schools  of  the  Puritan  or  the  Colonist.  Ages  of  tyranny,  of 
suppression,  repression,  and  torture  had  developed  the  tiger  and 
dwarfed  the  man.  Democracy  had  not  learned  the  first  rudi- 
ments of  liberty — self-restraint  and  self-government.  It  be- 
headed King  and  Queen,  it  drenched  the  land  with  the  blood  of 
the  noblest  and  best;  in  its  indiscriminate  frenzy  and  madness  it 
spared  neither  age  nor  sex,  virtue  nor  merit,  and  drove  its  bene- 
factor, because  he  denounced  its  excesses  and  tried  to  stem  them, 
into  exile  and  the  dungeon  of  Olmutz.  Thus  ended  in  the  hor- 
rors of  the  French  Revolution  Lafayette's  first  fight  for  liberty  at 
home. 

After  five  years  of  untold  sufferings,  spurning  release  at  the 
price  of  his  allegiance  to  monarchy,  holding  with  sublime  faith, 
amidst  the  most  disheartening  and  discouraging  surroundings, 
to  the  principles  of  freedom  for  all,  he  was  released  by  the  sword 
of  Napoleon  Bonaparte,  to  find  that  the  untamed  ferocity  of  the 
Revolution  had  been  trained  to  the  service  of  the  most  brilliant, 
captivating,  and  resistless  of  military  despotisms  by  the  mighty 
genius  of  the  great  Dictator.  He  only  was  neither  dazzled  nor 
dismayed,  and  when  he  had  rejected  every  offer  of  recognition 
and  honor,  Napoleon  said :  "Lafayette  alone  in  France  holds  fast 
to  his  original  ideas  of  liberty.  Though  tranquil  now,  he  will 
reappear  if  occasion  offers."  Against  the  First  Consulate  of 
Bonaparte  he  voted,  "No,  unless  with  guarantees  of  freedom.,, 
When  Europe  lay  helpless  at  the  feet  of  the  conqueror,  and  in 
the  frenzy  of  military  glory  France  neither  saw  nor  felt  the 
chains  he  was  forging  upon  her,  Lafayette  from  his  retirement 
of  Lagrange  pleaded  with  the  Emperor  for  republican  principles, 
holding  up  to  him  the  retributions  always  meted  out  to  tyrants, 
and  the  pure  undying  fame  of  the  immortal  few  who  patriotically 
decide,  when  upon  them  alone  rests  the  awful  verdict  whether 
they  shall  be  the  enslavers  or  the  saviors  of  their  country. 

The  sun  of  Austerlitz  set  in  blood  at  Waterloo;  the  swords 
of  the  allied  Kings  placed  the  Bourbon  once  more  on  the  throne 
of  France.  In  the  popular  tempest  of  July,  the  nation  rose 
against  the  intolerable  tyranny  of  the  King,  and,  calling  upon  this 
unfaltering  friend  of  liberty,  said  with  one  voice:  "You  alone 
can  save  France  from  despotism,  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  orgies 
of  the  Jacobin  mob,  on  the  other ;  take  absolute  power ;  be  mar- 


LIBERTY  ENLIGHTENING  THE  WORLD  105 

shal,  general,  dictator,  if  you  will."  But,  in  assuming  command 
of  the  National  Guard,  the  old  soldier  and  patriot  answered, 
amidst  the  hail  of  shot  and  shell :  "Liberty  shall  triumph,  or  we 
all  perish  together."  He  dethroned  and  drove  out  Charles  the 
Tenth,  and  France,  contented  with  any  destiny  he  might  accord 
to  her,  with  unquestioning  faith  left  her  future  in  his  hands.  He 
knew  that  the  French  people  were  not  yet  ready  to  take  and 
faithfully  keep  American  liberty.  He  believed  that  in  the  school 
of  constitutional  government  they  would  rapidly  learn,  and  in 
the  fulness  of  time  adopt,  its  principles ;  and  he  gave  them  a  king 
who  was  the  popular  choice,  and  surrounded  him  with  the  re- 
straints of  charter  and  an  Assembly  of  the  people.  And  now 
this  friend  of  mankind,  expressing  with  his  last  breath  a  fervent 
prayer  that  his  beloved  France  might  speedily  enjoy  the  liberty 
and  equality  and  the  republican  institutions  of  his  adored 
America,  entered  peacefully  into  rest.  United  in  a  common 
sorrow  and  a  common  sentiment,  the  people  of  France  and  the 
people  of  the  United  States  watered  his  grave  with  their  tears 
and  wafted  his  soul  to  God  with  their  gratitude. 

To-day,  in  the  gift  by  the  one,  and  the  acceptance  by  the  other, 
of  this  colossal  statue,  the  people  of  the  two  countries  celebrate 
their  unity  in  republican  institutions,  in  governments  founded 
upon  the  American  idea,  and  in  their  devotion  to  liberty.  To- 
gether they  rejoice  that  its  spirit  has  penetrated  all  lands  and  is 
the  hopeful  future  of  all  peoples.  American  liberty  has  been  for 
a  century  a  beacon  light  for  the  nations.  Under  its  teachings, 
and  by  the  force  of  its  example,  the  Italians  have  expelled  their 
petty  and  arbitrary  princelings  and  united  under  a  parliamentary 
government;  the  gloomy  despotism  of  Spain  has  been  dispelled  by 
its  representatives  of  the  people  and  a  free  press ;  the  great  Ger- 
man race  have  demonstrated  their  power  for  empire  and  their  abil~ 
ity  to  govern  themselves.  The  Austrian  monarch,  who,  when  a 
hundred  years  ago  Washington  pleaded  with  him  across  the  seas 
for  the  release  of  Lafayette  from  the  dungeon  of  Olmutz,  replied 
that  "he  had  not  the  power,"  because  the  safety  of  his  throne 
and  his  pledges  to  his  royal  brethren  of  Europe  compelled  him  to 
keep  confined  the  one  man  who  represented  the  enfranchisement 
of  the  people  of  every  race  and  country,  is  to-day,  in  the  person 
of  his  successor,  rejoicing  with  his  subjects  in  the  limitations  of  a 
Constitution  which  guarantees  liberties,  and  a  Congress  which 


106  ORATIONS   AND    MEMORIAL   ADDRESSES 

protects  and  enlarges  them.  Magna  Charta,  won  at  Runnymede 
for  Englishmen,  and  developing  into  the  principles  of  the  Declara- 
of  Independence  with  their  descendants,  has  returned  to  the 
mother  country  to  bear  fruit  in  an  open  Parliament,  a  free  press, 
the  loss  of  royal  prerogative,  and  the  passage  of  power  from  the 
classes  to  the  masses. 

The  sentiment  is  sublime  which  moves  the  people  of  France 
and  America,  the  blood  of  whose  fathers,  commingling  upon  the 
battle-fields  of  the  Revolution,  made  possible  this  magnificent 
march  of  liberty  and  their  own  republics,  to  commemorate  the 
results  of  the  past  and  typify  the  hopes  of  the  future  in  this  noble 
work  of  art.  The  descendants  of  Lafayette,  Rochambeau,  and 
De  Grasse,  who  fought  for  us  in  our  first  struggle,  and  Labou- 
laye,  Henri  Martin,  De  Lesseps,  and  other  grand  and  brilliant 
men,  whose  eloquent  voices  and  powerful  sympathies  were  with 
us  in  our  last,  conceived  the  idea,  and  it  has  received  majestic 
form  and  expression  through  the  genius  of  Bartholdi. 

In  all  ages  the  achievements  of  man  and  his  aspirations  have 
been  represented  in  symbols.  Races  have  disappeared  and  no 
record  remains  of  their  rise  or  fall,  but  by  their  monuments  we 
know  their  history.  The  huge  monoliths  of  the  Assyrians  and 
the  obelisks  of  the  Egyptians  tell  their  stories  of  forgotten  civili- 
zations, but  the  sole  purpose  of  their  erection  was  to  glorify 
rulers  and  preserve  the  boasts  of  conquerors.  They  teach  sad 
lessons  of  the  vanity  of  ambition,  the  cruelty  of  arbitrary  power, 
and  the  miseries  of  mankind.  The  Olympian  Jupiter  enthroned 
in  the  Parthenon  expressed  in  ivory  and  gold  the  awful  majesty 
of  the  Greek  idea  of  the  King  of  the  Gods;  the  bronze  statue 
of  Minerva  on  the  Acropolis  offered  the  protection  of  the  patron 
Goddess  of  Athens  to  the  mariners  who  steered  their  ships  by 
her  helmet  and  spear ;  and  in  the  Colossus  of  Rhodes,  famed  as 
one  of  the  Wonders  of  the  World,  the  Lord  of  the  Sun  welcomed 
the  commerce  of  the  East  to  the  city  of  his  worship.  But  they 
were  all  dwarfs  in  size  and  pigmies  in  spirit  beside  this  mighty 
structure  and  its  inspiring  thought.  Higher  than  the  monument 
in  Trafalgar  Square,  which  commemorates  the  victories  of 
Nelson  on  the  sea;  higher  than  the  Column  Vendome,  which 
perpetuates  the  triumphs  of  Napoleon  on  the  land ;  higher  than 
the  towers  of  the  Brooklyn  Bridge,  which  exhibit  the  latest  and 
grandest  results  of  science,  invention,  and  industrial  progress, 


LIBERTY  ENLIGHTENING  THE  WORLD  107 

this  Statue  of  Liberty  rises  toward  the  heavens  to  illustrate  an 
idea  which  nerved  the  three  hundred  at  Thermopylae  and  armed 
the  ten  thousand  at  Marathon ;  which  drove  Tarquin  from  Rome, 
and  aimed  the  arrow  of  Tell;  which  charged  with  Cromwell  and 
his  Ironsides,  and  accompanied  Sidney  to  the  block ;  which  fired 
the  farmer's  gun  at  Lexington,  and  razed  the  Bastile  in  Paris; 
which  inspired  the  charter  in  the  cabin  of  the  Mayflower,  and  the 
Declaration  of  Independence  from  the  Continental  Congress. 

It  means  that  with  the  abolition  of  privileges  to  the  few,  and 
the  enfranchisement  of  the  individual;  the  equality  of  all  men 
before  the  law,  and  universal  suffrage;  the  ballot  secure  from 
fraud,  and  the  voter  from  intimidation ;  the  press  free,  and  educa- 
tion furnished  by  the  State  for  all ;  liberty  of  worship,  and  free 
speech;  the  right  to  rise,  and  equal  opportunity  for  honor  and 
fortune;  the  problems  of  labor  and  capital,  of  social  regeneration 
and  moral  growth,  of  property  and  poverty,  will  work  themselves 
out  under  the  benign  influences  of  enlightened  law-making  and 
law-abiding  liberty,  without  the  aid  of  Kings  and  armies,  or  of 
anarchists  and  bombs. 

Through  the  Obelisk,2  so  strangely  recalling  to  us  of  yester- 
day the  past  of  more  than  thirty  centuries,  a  forgotten  monarch 
says:  "I  am  the  great  King,  the  Conqueror,  the  Chastiser  of 
Nations,"  and  except  as  a  monument  of  antiquity  it  conveys  no 
meaning  and  touches  no  chord  of  human  sympathy.  But,  for 
unnumbered  centuries  to  come,  as  Liberty  levels  up  the  people 
to  higher  standards  and  a  broader  life,  this  statue  will  grow 
in  the  admiration  and  affections  of  mankind.  When  Franklin 
drew  the  lightning  from  the  clouds,  he  little  dreamed  that  in 
the  evolution  of  science  his  discovery  would  illuminate  the  torch 
of  Liberty  for  France  and  America.  The  rays  from  this  beacon, 
lighting  this  gateway  to  the  continent,  will  welcome  the  poor  and 
the  persecuted  with  the  hope  and  promise  of  homes  and  citizen- 
ship. It  will  teach  them  that  there  is  room  and  brotherhood 
for  all  who  will  support  our  institutions  and  aid  in  our  develop- 
ment ;  but  that  those  who  come  to  disturb  our  peace  and  dethrone 
our  laws  are  aliens  and  enemies  forever.  I  devoutly  believe  that 
from  the  Unseen  and  the  Unknown,  two  great  souls  have  come 

'Popularly  called  Cleopatra's  Needle,  in  Central  Park,  New  York,  where  it  was  erected 
in  1881.  It  stood  originally  before  the  Temple'  of  the  Sun  at  Heliopolis,  Egypt,  about 
B.C..    1500.     Its  mate  stands  on  the   Thames   Embankment,   London. — Ed. 


108  ORATIONS   AND   MEMORIAL   ADDRESSES 

to  participate  in  this  celebration.  The  faith  in  which  they  died 
fulfilled,  the  cause  for  which  they  battled  triumphant,  the  people 
they  loved  in  the  full  enjoyment  of  the  rights  for  which  they 
labored  and  fought  and  suffered,  the  spirit  voices  of  Washington 
and  Lafayette  join  in  the  glad  acclaim  of  France  and  the  United 
States  to  Liberty  Enlightening  the  World. 


GRANTS   MAUSOLEUM 


ADDRESS  AT  THE  LAYING  OF  THE  CORNER-STONE  OF  THE  GRANT 
MAUSOLEUM  AT  RIVERSIDE  PARK,,  NEW  YORK,  APRIL  27,  1 892. 

Mr.  President  and  Fellow-Citizens:  The  predominant 
sentiment  of  General  Grant  was  his  family  and  his  home.  As 
son,  husband,  and  father,  his  care  and  devotion  were  constant 
and  beautiful.  While  visiting  the  capitals  of  the  Old  World,  he 
had  seen  the  stately  mausoleums  of  their  great  soldiers  or  states- 
men resting  in  the  gloom  of  cathedral  crypts,  or  the  solitude  of 
public  places,  far  from  the  simpler  graves  of  their  kindred. 
Under  St.  Paul's  he  saw  the  massive  tomb  which  encloses  the 
remains  of  the  Iron  Duke.  He  was  impressed  by  the  grandeur 
of  the  Temple  of  the  Invalides,  the  superb  monument  which 
France  erected  with  so  much  pride  and  tenderness  over  the  resting 
place  of  Napoleon.  The  perpetual  ceremonial,  the  inhuman 
coldness,  of  these  splendid  tributes  chilled  and  repelled  him.  He 
had  shrunk  all  his  life  from  display,  and  he  desired  to  escape 
it  after  death.  To  lie  in  the  churchyard  where  slept  his  father 
and  mother  would  have  been  more  in  accord  with  his  mind.  But 
he  appreciated  that  his  countrymen  had  a  claim  upon  his  memory 
and  the  lessons  of  his  life  and  fame.  He  knew  that  where  he 
was  buried,  there  they  would  build  a  shrine  for  the  study  and 
inspiration  of  coming  generations. 

He  selected  New  York  because  it  was  the  metropolis  of  the 
continent  and  the  capital  of  the  country,  but  he  made  one  condi- 
tion. No  spot  must  be  chosen  which  did  not  permit  his  wife  to 
be  by  his  side  at  the  Resurrection.  She  had  been  the  love  of  his 
youth,  the  companion  and  confidant  of  his  maturer  years.  She 
had  made  the  humble  cottage  at  Galena,  the  camp,  the  White 
House,  and  the  stately  city  residence,  all  equally  his  home.  He 
would  have  no  monument,  however  grand,  which  separated  him 
from  her  during  the  unnumbered  years  of  the  hereafter.  At 
Arlington  he  would  have  lain  among  the  soldiers  who  had  fol- 
lowed and  revered  their  great  commander,  but  at  Riverside  he 
will  await  the  last  trump  with  the  partner  of  his  life  and  the 
mother  of  his  children. 

109 


110  ORATIONS   AND   MEMORIAL   ADDRESSES 

A  Westminster  Abbey  or  a  Pantheon  is  impossible  with  us. 
They  are  the  indices  of  centralized  power,  and  that  is  contrary 
to  the  spirit  of  our  institutions.  Paris  has  been  France  for 
centuries,  and  her  thought  and  action  have  controlled  the  country. 
The  nation  has  drifted  helplessly  in  the  turbulent  current  of  the 
passions  or  purposes  of  the  capital.  London  is  the  center  of  the 
policies  and  opinions  of  the  British  Empire.  It  is  both  the  official 
and  the  real  home  of  the  Government,  and  also  of  the  business, 
the  intellectual  and  the  political  movements  in  the  dominions  of 
the  Queen.  But  our  nationality  is  a  sentiment  which  cannot  be 
localized  by  symbol.  The  vast  territory  of  the  Republic,  the 
diverse  interests  of  sections,  and  the  strength  of  cities  which 
focalize  local  opinions  or  prejudices,  are  disintegrating  forces 
which  will  forever  prevent  the  creation  of  a  Walhalla  in  which 
shall  be  gathered  the  bones  or  erected  the  statues  of  those  who,  as 
soldiers,  or  statesmen,  or  citizens,  have  deserved  the  conspicuous 
recognition  of  their  country. 

The  memory  of  our  heroes,  our  patriots,  and  our  men  of 
genius  is  one  of  the  strongest  of  the  bonds  that  hold  together  our 
Union  and  perpetuate  our  power.  But  the  altars  upon  which  the 
fires  of  patriotism  are  ever  burning  are  north,  south,  east,  and 
west.  Washington  is  at  Mount  Vernon,  Lincoln  at  Springfield, 
Grant  at  New  York,  Sherman  at  St.  Louis,  and  Jackson  at  the 
Hermitage.  Jefferson  is  at  Monticello,  and  Adams  at  Quincy, 
Irving  rests  among  the  scenes  immortalized  by  his  pen  at  Sleepy 
Hollow,  and  Longfellow  amid  the  inspirations  of  his  muse  at 
Cambridge.  Every  State  cherishes  the  remains  of  its  citizens, 
whose  illustrious  achievements  are  the  glory  of  the  country  and 
the  pride  of  their  commonwealth,  whose  works  and  lives  are 
ever-living  lessons  of  love  and  devotion  to  the  flag  and  Constitu- 
tion of  the  United  States. 

New  York,  in  accepting  this  bequest  of  General  Grant,  has 
assumed  a  sacred  trust.  Upon  no  municipality  and  its  citizens 
ever  devolved  a  more  solemn  duty.  From  the  tenderest  motives, 
he  took  from  the  National  Government  the  task  which  it  would 
most  loyally  and  lovingly  have  performed,  and  intrusted  it  to 
this  great  city.  The  whole  country  is  enlisted  in  the  army  of 
reverence  and  sorrow,  but  he  appointed  New  York  the  Guard  of 
Honor.  Let  the  monument  which  will  rise  upon  this  corner-stone 
be  worthy  of  the  magnitude  of  the  metropolis  and  the  grandeur 


I  UNIVERSITY    I 

GRANT'S  MAUSOLEUM  HI 

of  the  subject.  General  Grant  needs  no  stately  shaft  or  massive 
pile  to  perpetuate  his  memory.  The  Republic  is  his  monument, 
and  its  history  during  what  must  always  be  its  most  critical  and 
interesting  period  will  be  the  story  of  his  deeds.  But  this  memo- 
rial will  continue  for  coming  generations  an  object  lesson,  teach- 
ing the  inestimable  value  of  the  Federal  Union  and  the  limitless 
range  of  American  opportunity. 

A  phenomenon  of  our  times,  and  one  of  the  chief  dangers 
to  law  and  order,  is  the  growth  of  the  School  of  Despair.  The 
concentrated  contemplation  of  accumulated  wealth,  and  the  hope- 
lessness of  acquiring  it,  paralyzes  industrial  energies  and  true 
ambitions,  and  plants  the  seeds  of  socialism  and  anarchy.  But 
Lincoln,  from  the  poverty  of  the  Kentucky  cabin,  and  Grant 
from  the  narrow  gifts  of  a  log  house  in  the  Ohio  wilderness, 
became  the  central  figure  and  the  representative  heroes  of  our 
age.  They  are  types  of  the  glory  of  American  citizenship.  The 
rail-splitter  of  the  backwoods,  the  country  lawyer,  the  President 
who  guided  the  ship  of  state  with  unequaled  skill  and  courage 
through  the  breakers  which  imperiled  its  life,  was  in  every  position 
the  same  hopeful  and  dutiful  Abraham  Lincoln.  The  young 
captain  in  the  Mexican  War,  the  Missouri  farmer  himself  har- 
vesting and  marketing  the  product  of  his  scant  acres,  the  Galena 
tanner  living  happily  on  six  hundred  dollars  a  year,  the  victori- 
ous commander  of  a  million  men,  the  President  of  the  United 
States,  the  hero  accepted  as  the  guest  and  peer  of  the  kings  and 
emperors  of  the  World,  was,  under  conditions  as  humble  as  those 
of  any  of  the  mass  of  his  fellow-citizens  who  were  striving 
for  a  living,  and  greater  and  grander  than  those  which  have 
surrounded  any  of  his  countrymen,  ever  the  same  simple  and  loyal 
Ulysses  S.  Grant. 

Only  under  free  institutions  are  such  examples  possible.  The 
avenues  of  preferment  and  opportunity  must  be  open  alike  to  all. 
These  great  Americans  illustrate  the  processes  by  which  master- 
ful men  forge  to  the  front,  and  the  less  capable  or  industrious 
find  their  places  in  the  ranks  in  every  village  and  hamlet  in  the 
land.  They  did  their  best  wherever  they  were,  believing  that 
their  highest  duty  was  to  preserve  the  liberty  and  the  laws  which 
barred  no  man's  way,  and  which  protected  and  punished  alike 
the  rich  and  the  poor,  the  strong  and  the  weak.  The  secret  of 
good  citizenship  and  earnest  effort  is  to  be  contented,  but  never 


112  ORATIONS  AND   MEMORIAL   ADDRESSES 

satisfied.  All  the  Presidents  of  the  United  States  since  General 
Washington  have  been  poor  men.  This  is  singular  in  a  nation 
so  intent  upon  the  pursuit  of  wealth.  It  demonstrates  that  there 
are  other  paths  to  power,  distinction,  and  happiness  than  the  one 
upon  which  we  are  pushing  so  madly.  It  reduces  it  almost  to  an 
axiom  that  the  roads  to  great  fortunes  and  to  the  Presidency  are 
not  coincident. 

The  schools  cannot  create  heroes.  They  train  and  discipline 
faculties  as  to  which  only  opportunity  can  reveal  whether  they 
are  the  gifts  of  a  great  commander.  We  have  learned  con- 
fidently to  rely  upon  the  man  appearing  when  the  emergency 
demands  him.     But  until  then  he  stands  in  the  rear  ranks. 

"Full  many  a  gem  of  purest  ray  serene 

The  dark  unfathomed  caves  of  ocean  bear; 
Full  many  a  flower  is  born  to  blush  unseen 
And  waste  its  sweetness  on  the  desert  air." 

It  is  the  paradox  of  preparation  for  the  mastery  of  great  events, 
that  those  who  have  been  most  conspicuously  in  control  of  the 
Government,  or  the  army,  have  rarely  been  equal  to  the  demands 
of  revolution  or  rebellion.  Von  Moltke  is  almost  alone  among 
eminent  soldiers  in  having  exhibited  in  youth  the  promise  so 
gloriously  fulfilled  in  his  prime.  Caesar  was  a  dissipated  dandy. 
Wellington  was  a  dull  boy.  The  only  record  of  Napoleon  at 
St.  Cyr  beyond  the  average  was  that  he  was  "very  healthy." 
Grant  preferred  farming  to  the  army,  and  entered  West  Point 
with  reluctance.  Standing  near  the  middle  of  his  class,  he 
neither  secured  the  attention  of  those  above,  nor  aroused  the  envy 
of  the  cadets  below  him  in  scholarship.  Neither  instructors  nor 
fellow-students  saw  in  the  sergeant,  reduced  to  the  ranks,  the 
germs  of  the  first  strategist  of  his  time.  As  mighty  convulsions 
of  nature  break  channels,  and  bring  sources  of  supply  to  subter- 
ranean streams  converted  by  the  earthquake  into  great  rivers, 
so  the  reserve  powers  and  latent  forces  of  some  men  are  brought 
into  action  only  by  the  gravest  responsibilities  and  grandest  crises. 
Seward,  Chase,  and  Sumner  were  the  leaders  of  the  dominant 
opinion  of  their  period.  They  possessed  lifelong  experience  in 
public  affairs,  and  had  won  and  deserved  universal  fame.  Seward 
was  a  great  senator  and  a  greater  foreign  minister.  He  has  had 
few  equals  as  a  diplomatist  since  Talleyrand.     Chase  possessed 


GRANT'S  MAUSOLEUM  113 

rare  judgment  and  a  creative  intelligence  of  the  highest  order. 
Sumner  added  to  unequaled  learning  and  culture  the  gifts  of 
superb  oratory,  fired  by  the  profoundest  convictions  and  emotions 
for  human  liberty.  The  calm  retrospect  of  the  present  clearly 
sees  that  either  of  them  would  have  proved  a  tragical  failure  in 
the  fearful  perils  and  terrible  ordeals  so  marvelously  controlled 
by  the  unknown  Lincoln. 

The  Civil  War  demonstrated  that  our  country  was  singularly 
rich  in  excellent  brigade,  division,  and  corps  commanders.  It 
developed  three  or  four  officers  capable  of  initiating  and  conduct- 
ing military  operations  with  immense  forces  and  on  a  large  field, 
but  only  one  general.  The  more  graphic  and  bloody  pictures 
of  the  War  were  the  hapless  fields,  where  the  veteran  victors  of 
many  a  fight,  when  in  command  of  twenty-five  thousand  men, 
rode  with  reckless  courage  and  dazed  minds  amid  the  confusion 
arising  from  their  inability  to  handle  fifty  thousand.  The  think- 
ing bayonets  of  citizen  soldiers,  and  the  invincible  courage  charac- 
teristic of  Americans,  gave  the  Government  the  best  armies  that 
ever  marched  or  fought.  They  were  often  under  incompetent 
leaders,  but  never  demoralized  or  discouraged.  Though  deci- 
mated by  disease  and  their  ranks  thinned  by  useless  slaughter, 
they  never  murmured  or  despaired.  They  had  enlisted  to  save 
the  Union,  and  when  at  last  they  had  a  commander  capable  of 
directing  their  energies  and  planning  their  movements,  a  general 
whose  comprehensive  mind  grasped  the  situation  over  the  whole 
country,  and  whose  clear  judgment  discerned  the  weak  points 
of  the  enemy,  and  the  places  where  his  own  strength  should 
be  concentrated,  they,  at  fearful  sacrifice,  but  with  unfailing  faith, 
did  save  the  Union. 

The  intellect  which  tired  of  the  routine  of  a  soldier's  life  in 
times  of  peace,  which  could  not  be  roused  to  the  successful 
management  of  a  farm  or  a  surveyor's  office,  which  indifferently 
comprehended  the  duties  of  a  clerk  or  junior  in  a  merchant's 
firm,  was  clarified  by  grave  perils  and  expanded  under  great 
responsibilities.  Grant  at  forty  was  an  unknown  and  unimport- 
ant citizen  in  a  Western  town,  and  at  forty-two  was  the  hope 
of  the  army,  and  the  hero  of  the  popular  imagination.  Self- 
confidence  is  the  attribute  of  great  men  and  of  fools.  By  it  the 
former  illustrate  their  ability  and  the  latter  demonstrate  their 
folly.  The  average  mind  needs  and  seeks  both  advice  and  assist- 
Vol.  1—8 


114  ORATIONS   AND   MEMORIAL   ADDRESSES 

ance.  Grant  was  the  most  independent  of  generals,  and  the 
result  placed  him  in  the  front  rank  of  the  great  captains  of  the 
world.  He  rarely  held  councils  of  war,  and  never  adopted  their 
conclusions.  He  sometimes  acted  directly  against  the  unanimous 
judgments  of  the  assemblage.  General  Sherman  once  remarked : 
"I  lay  awake  all  night  wondering  where  the  enemy  are,  but  Grant 
don't  care  where  they  are  or  what  they  are  doing."  This  was 
because,  having  once  prepared  his  plans  with  reference  to  every 
known  contingency,  he  had  so  completely  calculated  his  own 
resources  and  his  adversary's,  that  he  could  not  contemplate 
disaster  and  never  knew  defeat.  After  the  capture  of  Fort 
Henry,  Halleck,  then  commander-in-chief,  advised  him  to  fortify 
his  position,  and  picks,  shovels,  and  intrenching  tools  would  be 
sent  him.  Instead,  he  marched  upon  Donelson.  When  all  his 
officers  were  of  opinion  that  a  sally  in  force  from  the  Fort  was  to 
be  guarded  against,  he  made  up  his  mind  from  the  full  haversacks 
found  on  the  Confederate  dead  that  the  enemy  intended  to  re- 
treat, and  by  ordering  an  immediate  assault  captured  Donelson 
and  gained  his  first  real  victory.  When  General  Buell  and  other 
commanders  remonstrated  with  him  for  moving  from  Pittsburg 
Landing,  because  there  were  not  boats  enough  to  carry  over  the 
river  one-third  of  his  force  in  case  he  was  defeated,  "There  are 
more  than  sufficient  to  carry  all  there  will  be  left  of  it,"  was  the 
grim  answer,  and  he  marched  to  the  victory  of  Shiloh.  When 
General  Sherman  and  all  the  able  officers  about  him  protested 
against  the  perilous  movement  to  get  below  Vicksburg,  and  attack 
the  city  from  the  other  side,  because  his  army  would  be  cut 
off  from  its  base  of  supplies,  "The  North  will  cut  off  our  sup- 
plies," he  said,  "unless  we  succeed";  and  the  Fourth  of  July, 
1863,  became  one  of  the  glorious  days  in  the  annals  of  war.  For 
thirty  days  he  led  the  Army  of  the  Potomac  through  the  Wilder- 
ness, hurling  it  against  the  intrenched  positions  of  the  enemy  by 
day  and  moving  it  by  night  to  assault  fresh  defenses  in  the  morn- 
ing. The  country  shuddered  with  horror  at  the  carnage,  and 
called  for  his  removal ;  his  officers  were  affected  by  the  universal 
distrust  of  his  movements;  the  mangled  columns  of  troops, 
recoiling  from  the  shot  and  shell  which  plowed  through  their 
ranks  from  impregnable  fortifications,  sometimes  refused  to 
attack  again.  But  the  response  of  the  confident  and  imperturba- 
ble commander  to  his  soldiers,  was  the  ever-recurring  order,  "By 


GRANT'S  MAUSOLEUM  115 

the  left  flank,  forward,"  and  to  his  countrymen,  "I  will  fight  it 
out  on  this  line  if  it  takes  all  summer."  Criticising  cabinets, 
hostile  congressmen,  doubting  generals,  and  distrustful  people  all 
surrendered  with  Lee  at  Appomattox. 

No  man  can  be  truly  great,  unless  he  is  also  magnanimous. 
Grant  was  the  most  self-sacrificing  of  friends,  and  the  most 
generous  of  foes.  The  underlying  forces  which  stirred  his  feel- 
ings and  prompted  his  actions  were  a  profound  sense  of  justice 
and  ardent  patriotism.  The  triumphant  march  from  Atlanta  to 
the  sea  had  aroused  the  enthusiasm  and  captured  the  imagination 
of  the  people,  who  had  been  contemplating  with  sullen  anger  the 
losses  in  the  Wilderness  and  the  bloody  but  ineffectual  battles 
about  Richmond.  They  demanded  that  Sherman  be  placed  in 
supreme  command.  Sherman,  with  that  beautiful  loyalty  which 
he  always  showed  to  his  chief,  loudly  protested  and  refused,  but 
Grant  calmly  wrote,  "No  one  would  be  more  pleased  at  your 
advancement  than  I.  I  would  make  the  same  exertions  to 
support  you,  that  you  have  done  to  support  me,  and  I  would  do 
all  in  my  power  to  make  our  cause  win."  In  the  rapid  reversals 
common  to  revolutions,  after  a  few  weeks  Richmond  had  fallen 
and  Grant  was  the  popular  hero,  the  terms  offered  to  General 
Joe  Johnston  by  Sherman  had  been  contemptuously  counter- 
manded by  the  Secretary  of  War,  and  Grant  had  been  sent  to 
relieve  Sherman  and  receive  the  submission  of  the  last  Confed- 
erate army.  But  Grant  remained  outside  the  camp,  his  visit 
known  only  to  a  few,  while  Sherman  submitted  the  modified 
terms  from  Washington  to  Johnston,  and  received  his  sword. 
Not  until  years  afterward  did  he,  General  Sherman,  know  that 
he  had  been  superseded. 

"Unconditional  surrender,  or  I  move  immediately  on  your 
works,"  were  the  conditions  Grant  offered  Buckner  at  Donelson ; 
but  in  the  darkness  of  the  night  he  entered  the  prisoner's  tent  and 
said,  "Buckner,  you  must  have  lost  everything:  take  my  purse." 
He  had  been  for  months  making  toilsome  efforts  to  break  through 
the  Confederate  lines,  but  after  the  surrender  of  their  defenders 
he  refused  to  go  within  them.  The  failure  to  capture  the  Con- 
federate capital  had  exhausted  the  resources  and  impaired  the 
reputation  of  all  the  generals  who  had  preceded  him,  but  when 
it  lay  prostrate  at  his  feet  he  sternly  declined  the  triumph  of  an 
entry  at  the  head  of  his  victorious  army.     A  like  temptation  had 


116  ORATIONS   AND   MEMORIAL   ADDRESSES 

not  been  resisted  by  any  conqueror  of  ancient  or  modern  times. 
But  General  Grant  said:  "These  people  are  now  and  will  be 
hereafter  our  brethren  and  fellow-citizens,  and  they  must  not 
be  humiliated." 

It  was  difficult  to  win  his  confidence,  but  when  once  gained, 
his  heart,  his  efforts,  and  his  fortune  were  at  command.  Neither 
secret  nor  open  enemies,  neither  direct  charges  nor  anonymous 
revelations,  could  disturb  his  friendship  for  anyone  he  had  once 
trusted.  On  that  subject  his  mind  was  closed.  In  selecting 
commanders  for  armies  or  expeditions  he  seldom  made  an  error 
of  judgment.  To  Sherman  and  Sheridan  he  gave  unstinted 
praise.  Both  in  public  and  private  he  declared  them  to  be  the 
greatest  generals  of  modern  times.  He  was  so  entirely  free  from 
envy  or  jealousy,  so  enthusiastic  in  his  admiration  of  these  lieu- 
tenants, that  he  awarded  to  them  the  larger  share  of  credit  for 
the  ultimate  triumph  of  the  Union  cause.  But  these  same  quali- 
ties, so  creditable  to  his  ingenuous  and  generous  nature,  became 
the  chief  sources  of  his  mistakes  and  troubles,  when  he  was 
treading  with  untrained  steps  amid  the  quicksands  of  political 
and  business  life.  Though  he  commanded  forces  more  numerous, 
and  maneuvered  them  over  a  territory  more  extensive  than  any 
general  in  wars  among  civilized  nations;  though  his  campaign 
resulted  in  the  capture  of  all  the  armies  opposed  to  him,  and  the 
submission  of  all  the  hostile  States  and  people,  yet  some  foreign 
military  writers  of  eminence  have  assigned  the  higher  rank 
among  captains  to  Lee.  But  their  judgment  is  biased,  as  with 
Wolseley,  by  service  on  his  staff,  or  by  enmity  to  the  great 
Republic. 

It  is  the  fate  of  the  defeated  side  in  civil  wars  that  one  leader 
represents  the  lost  cause,  and  all  others  are  buried  in  oblivion. 
The  world  knows  little,  and  remembers  less,  of  those  who  repre- 
sent dead  issues  or  disastrous  revolts.  The  civil  side  of  the 
Confederacy  will  fill  a  small  space  in  history,  but  the  record  of  its 
military  achievements  will  cover  many  pages.  Its  representative 
will  be,  not  Jefferson  Davis,  but  General  Lee.  No  indefensible 
cause  ever  had  so  good  a  defender  as  this  conscientious  and 
capable  leader,  and  few  battles  for  the  right  a  better  one.  He 
had  been  educated  to  believe  that  his  loyalty  was  to  his  State 
against  his  country,  and  he  gave  to  the  service  of  the  Confederacy 
the  prestige  of  a  patriotically  historic  name;  the  highest  personal 


GRANTS  MAUSOLEUM  117 

character,  and  military  genius  of  the  first  order.  For  three  years 
he  baffled  the  plans  or  routed  the  armies  of  successive  Union 
commanders.  It  is  true  that  he  had  fewer  men,  and  more  limited 
resources;  it  is  true  that  he  utilized  his  opportunities  with  the 
rarest  skill  and  wisdom ;  but  it  is  also  true  that  with  interior  lines, 
and  a  friendly  population,  a  general  has  great  advantages.  It 
neither  detracts  from  the  fame,  nor  impairs  the  estimate  of  this 
consummate  soldier,  that  he  was  beaten  by  Grant.  Great  as  he 
was,  he  had  met  a  greater. 

The  culminating  triumph  of  General  Grant  was  that  he 
received  and  returned  the  sword  of  Lee.  The  one  act  typified 
the  victory  and  perpetuity  of  the  Union,  and  the  other  that  its 
defenders  forever  after  would  be  those  who,  with  equal  and 
unequaled  courage,  had  fought  to  save  and  to  destroy  it. 

Grant's  claims  upon  the  gratitude  of  his  countrymen  are 
many.  He  will  have  peculiar  remembrance  for  having,  with 
President  Lincoln,  immediately  recognized  that  the  Republic  must 
live  as  the  fathers  had  founded  it.  American  liberty  is  in- 
trenched in  the  indissoluble  Union  of  sovereign  States,  and  can- 
not exist  with  subject  provinces.  Above  Belmont  and  Donelson, 
above  Shiloh  and  Vicksburg,  above  the  campaign  in  the  West  and 
Appomattox  in  the  East,  rise  the  inestimable  services  which  he 
rendered  in  the  peace  and  reunion  of  his  country,  when  he  threw 
himself  and  his  fame  between  President  Andrew  Johnson's 
scheme  of  vengeance  and  the  Confederate  leaders  he  had  paroled, 
and  when  again  he  threatened  to  draw  his  sword  to  prevent  a 
transfer  by  the  same  President  to  the  same  leaders,  of  the  power 
they  had  lost  and  the  Government  they  had  tried  to  destroy. 

The  most  brilliant  jewels  in  his  crown  of  glory  will  be  that, 
though  a  conqueror  in  the  field,  he  counseled  through  life,  and 
advised  with  his  pen  when  in  his  last  hours  his  voice  had  failed, 
peace  and  reconciliation  among  his  countrymen,  and  that  though 
a  soldier  President,  he  successfully  demonstrated  the  justice  and 
wisdom  of  settling  disputes  among  nations,  not  by  war,  but  by 
arbitration. 

The  tendrils  of  loyalty  and  love  stretch  from  his  monument 
to  every  soldier's  grave  in  the  land.  The  members  of  the  Grand 
Army  of  the  Republic  who  have  gone  before,  and  those  who  are 
here  awaiting  the  summons,  present  arms  to-day  to  the  memory 
of  their  old  commander.     This  Imperial  City  proudly  and  affec- 


118  ORATIONS   AND   MEMORIAL   ADDRESSES 

tionately  assumes  the  custody  of  his  remains.  The  people,  called 
from  the  absorbing  cares  of  life  by  his  natal  day  and  this  solemn 
ceremony,  take  up  again  their  burdens  with  lighter  hearts,  and 
brighter  hopes  for  their  children  and  their  children's  children, 
because  of  the  career  and  the  deeds  of  Ulysses  S.  Grant. 


GRANT'S  STATUE  AT  GALENA 


ADDRESS  AT  THE  UNVEILING  OF  THE  STATUE  OF  GENERAL  GRANT, 
AT  GALENA,  ILL.,  JUNE  3,   1 89 1. 

Thirty  years  ago  your  city  of  Galena  numbered  among  its 
citizens  a  man  so  modest  that  he  was  little  known  in  the  com- 
munity; a  merchant  so  humble  that  his  activities  were  not  felt 
in  your  business.  Three  years  later  his  fame  illumined  the  earth, 
and  the  calculations  of  every  commercial  venture,  and  of  every 
constructive  enterprise  in  the  country,  were  based  upon  the  suc- 
cess or  failure  of  his  plans.  He  was  then  supporting  his  family 
on  a  thousand  dollars  a  year,  and  before  the  third  anniversary  of 
his  departure  from  your  city  he  was  spending  four  millions  a  day 
for  the  preservation  of  the  Union.  One  of  the  patriotic  meet- 
ings, common  at  that  period  all  over  the  North,  was  held  here  to 
sustain  President  Lincoln  in  his  call  for  seventy-five  thousand 
men  to  suppress  the  rebellion.  The  ardor  and  eloquence  of  John 
A.  Rawlins  so  impressed  an  auditor  whom  none  of  the  congress- 
men and  prominent  citizens  on  the  platform  had  ever  met,  that  he 
subsequently  made  the  orator  his  chief  of  staff  and  Secretary  of 
War.  Someone  discovered  that  Captain  Grant,  a  graduate  of 
West  Point  and  a  veteran  of  the  Mexican  War,  lived  in  this  city, 
and  he  was  invited  to  preside  at  the  formation  of  a  military  com- 
pany. He  was  so  diffident  that  few  heard  his  speech  of  three 
sentences,  but  in  that  short  address  was  condensed  all  the  elo- 
quence and  logic  of  the  time.  "You  know  the  object  for  which 
we  are  assembled.  Men  are  needed  to  preserve  the  Union. 
What  is  your  pleasure?"  He  organized  and  drilled  that  company, 
and  led  it  to  the  Governor  at  Springfield.  By  that  march  Galena 
lost  a  citizen  and  the  Republic  found  its  saviour. 

While  others  were  enlisting  for  brief  periods  he  besought  the 
Adjutant-General  to  assign  him  to  duty  for  the  war,  but  the 
War  Department  had  forgotten  him.  He  struggled  for  days  to 
work  through  the  brilliant  staff  into  the  presence  of  General  Mc- 
Clellan,  but  the  young  dandies  scornfully  and  successfully  barred 
his  way.    It  was  soon  seen  that  the  obscure  military  clerk  in  the 

119 


120  ORATIONS   AND   MEMORIAL   ADDRESSES 

office  of  the  Governor  of  Illinois  was  capable  where  all  the  rest 
were  ignorant,  and  that  under  his  firm  and  confident  hand  order 
was  evolved  out  of  chaos  and  raw  recruits  disciplined  into  sol- 
diers. Though  he  was  unknown  and  unnamed  to  the  public,  the 
executive  recognized  in  him  the  organizing  brain  of  the  military 
forces  of  the  State.  To  a  reluctant  President  and  hostile  Secre- 
tary the  Illinois  delegation  said:  "Where  most  of  the  appoint- 
ments are  experiments,  try  Captain  Grant  as  one  of  your  briga- 
dier generals."  Thus  the  commonwealth  which  had  so  hotly 
pressed  Lincoln  for  the  chief  magistracy  of  the  Republic  assumed 
the  responsibility  for  Grant  as  commander  of  the  army. 

These  marvelous  men  were  the  products  of  that  characteristic 
intuition  of  the  West  which  quickly  discerns  merit,  and  then  con- 
fidently proclaims  its  faith.  Education  and  experience  make  old 
and  crowded  communities  averse  to  leadership  unless  it  has  been 
trained  and  tested.  They  accept  nothing  outside  the  record.  The 
fact  that  the  conditions  are  new,  and  the  emergency  greater  than 
the  schools  have  provided  for,  are  stronger  reasons  for  selecting 
only  the  men  who  have  approximately  demonstrated  their  ability. 
For  all  the  ordinary  emergencies  of  life  the  rule  is  excellent.  But 
it  sometimes  happens  that  the  captain  who  has  successfully  weath- 
ered a  hundred  gales  is  saved  from  shipwreck,  in  a  hurricane,  by 
the  genius  of  a  subordinate.  It  is  not  that  the  uneducated  and 
untrained  can,  by  any  natural  endowment,  be  fitted  for  command. 
Lincoln  as  a  statesman  had  studied  politics  on  the  stump  and  in 
Congress,  and  Grant  as  a  soldier  had  learned  war  at  West  Point 
and  in  Mexico.  The  opportunity  had  not  come  to  either  to  stand 
before  the  country  with  Seward,  Sumner,  and  Chase,  or  with 
Scott,  Halleck,  and  McClellan.  The  East,  following  the  tradi- 
tions and  practice  of  the  centuries,  presented  tried  and  famous 
statesmen  at  the  Chicago  Convention,  and  saw  the  Army  of  the 
Potomac  led  to  defeat  and  disaster,  for  years,  by  admirable  of- 
ficers who  were  unequal  to  the  supreme  perils  of  the  handling  of 
gigantic  forces  upon  a  vast  arena.  The  West  gave  to  the  country 
for  President  the  railsplitter  of  the  Ohio,  and,  to  lead  its  forces 
in  the  field,  Grant,  Sherman,  and  Sheridan.  P 

Grant's  career  will  be  the  paradox  of  history.  Parallels  can- 
not be  drawn  for  him  with  the  great  captains  of  the  world.  His- 
torians, by  common  consent,  place  Alexander  the  Great,  Hanni- 
bal, Julius  Caesar,  and  Napoleon  Bonaparte  in  the  front  rank. 


GRANT'S  STATUE  AT  GALENA         121 

But  each  of  them  had  learned  the  art  of  war  by  continuous  ser- 
vice and  unequaled  opportunities,  and  displayed  the  most  brilliant 
qualities  at  every  period  of  their  achievements.  Hannibal  and 
Caesar  had  won  universal  fame  in  the  thirties.  Alexander  died 
at  thirty-three,  grieving  because  he  had  no  more  worlds  to  con- 
quer, and  Napoleon  at  thirty-seven  was  master  of  Europe.  But 
Grant,  at  forty,  was  an  obscure  leather  merchant  in  Galena.  As 
a  cadet  at  West  Point,  he  had  risen  only  just  above  the  middle  of 
his  class.  As  a  subaltern  on  the  frontier  and  in  Mexico,  he  had 
done  no  more  than  perform  his  duty  with  the  courage  and  capa- 
city of  the  average  West  Pointer.  He  had  pursued  agriculture 
with  his  customary  conscientious  care  and  industry.  He  was  not 
afraid  to  do  the  work  of  the  farm  himself,  nor  ashamed  to  ride 
into  St.  Louis  upon  the  load  of  wood  he  was  to  sell,  nor  to  pile 
it  up  for  his  customer,  and  yet  almost  any  farmer  in  Missouri  was 
more  successful.  Clients  failed  to  retain  him  as  a  surveyor,  his 
real  estate  office  had  to  be  closed,  and  he  was  not  a  factor  in  the 
tanner's  firm. 

But  the  moment  that  the  greatest  responsibilities  were  thrust 
upon  him,  and  the  fate  of  his  country  rested  upon  his  shoulders, 
this  indifferent  farmer,  business  man,  merchant,  became  the  fore- 
most figure  of  the  century.  The  reserve  powers  of  a  dominant 
intellect,  which  ordinary  affairs  could  not  move,  came  into  ac- 
tion. A  mighty  mind,  which  God  had  kept  for  the  hour  of  su- 
preme danger  to  the  Republic,  grasped  the  scattered  elements  of 
strength,  solidified  them  into  a  resistless  force,  and  organized 
victory.  He  divined  the  purpose  of  the  enemy  as  well  as  he  knew 
his  own  plans.  His  brain  became  clearer,  his  strategy  more  per- 
fect, and  his  confidence  in  himself  more  serene  as  his  power  in- 
creased. He  could  lead  the  assault  at  Donelson,  or  the  forlorn 
hope  at  Shiloh,  or  maneuver  his  forces  with  exquisite  skill  and 
rare  originality  of  resources  at  Vicksburg,  as  the  best  of  brigade 
or  corps  commanders ;  or  before  Richmond  calmly  conduct  a  cam- 
paign covering  a  continent,  and  command  armies  with  consum- 
mate generalship.  At  the  critical  hour  during  the  battle  of  Se- 
dan, when  the  German  Emperor  and  Bismarck  were  anxiously 
waiting  and  watching  their  silent  general,  an  officer  rode  up  and 
announced  that  two  corps  of  the  German  army,  marching  from 
opposite  directions,  had  met  at  a  certain  hour.  The  movement 
closed  in  the  French  and  ended  the  war.     Von  Moltke  simply 


122  ORATIONS   AND   MEMORIAL   ADDRESSES 

said,  "The  calculation  was  correct."  Grant  had  not  the  scientific 
training  and  wonderful  staff  of  the  Prussian  field  marshal,  but 
he  possessed  in  the  highest  degree  the  same  clear  vision  and  ac- 
curate reasoning.  The  calculation  was  always  correct,  and  the 
victory  sure. 

The  mantle  of  prophecy  no  longer  descends  upon  a  successor, 
and  the  divine  purpose  is  not  revealed  to  mortals.     There  exist, 
however,  in  every  age  masterful  men,  who  are  masterful  be- 
cause they  see  with  clear  vision  the  course  of  events  and  fear- 
lessly act  upon  the  forecast.     By  this  faculty  the  statesman  saves 
his  country  from  disaster  or  lifts  it  to  the  pinnacle  of  power, 
the  soldier  plucks  victory  from  defeat,  and  the  man  of  affairs 
astonishes  the  world  by  the  magnitude  and  success  of  his  opera- 
tions.    It  was  pre-eminently  Grant's  gift.     Four  days  after  the 
first  shot  was  fired  at  Fort  Sumter,  he  wrote  from  Galena  a  letter 
to  his  father-in-law  predicting  the  uprising  of  the  North  and 
the  fall  of  slavery.     Others  saw  only  the  commercial  spirit  of 
the  free  States.    He,  far  in  advance  of  the  public  men  of  the  time, 
divined  that  superb  patriotism  which  inspired  millions  to  leave  the 
farm  and  the  family,  their  business  and  their  homes,  to  save  the 
Union.    While  statesmen  of  all  parties  were  temporizing  and  com- 
promising with  the  slave  power,  this  silent  thinker,  in  the  rear 
ranks  of  the  people,  pierced  with  undimmed  eyes  the  veil  which 
had  clouded  the  vision  of  the  nation  for  a  hundred  years.     His 
calm  judgment  comprehended  the  forces  in  the  conflict,  and  that 
their  collision  would  break  and  pulverize  the  shackles  of  the  slave. 
When  taking  observations,  while  standing  with  his  staff  on  a  hill 
within  short  range  of  Fort  Donelson,  he  said,  "Don't  be  afraid, 
gentlemen.     Pillow,  who  commands  there,  never  fired  at  any- 
thing."    His  assault  would  have  been  rashness,  except  that  he 
knew  Pillow  and  Floyd;  and  they  both  ran  away  and  left  the 
besieged  to  their  fate.     At  Shiloh,  when  all  his  assistants  had 
failed  or  despaired,  he  turned  the  worst  of  disasters  into  one  of 
the  most  significant  of  triumphs. 
r     His  plans  did  not  contemplate  defeat.     The  movement  he  al- 
ways made  was  "Advance."    The  order  he  always  gave  was  "For- 
ward!"    When  Buell  told  him  that  the  transports  at  Pittsburg 
Landing  would  not  carry  away  one-third  of  his  force,  Grant  said, 
"If  that  becomes  necessary,  they  will  hold  all  that  are  left."    His 
Vicksburg  campaign  was  against  all  the  teachings  of  the  military 


GRANT'S  STATUE  AT  GALENA         123 

schools  and  the  unanimous  opinions  of  his  council  of  war.  A 
veteran  strategist  cried  in  indignant  remonstrance,  "You  will  cut 
loose  from  your  base  of  supplies,  and  that  is  contrary  to  all  the 
rules."  Grant  answered,  "Unless  we  capture  Vicksburg,  the 
North  will  cut  off  our  supplies,"  and  the  sorely  bereaved  and  dis- 
heartened people  were  transported  with  joy  and  hope  by 
the  Fourth  of  July  message,  "Vicksburg  has  surrendered."  The 
Western  armies  never  knew  their  resistless  power,  until  they  felt 
the  hand  of  this  master.  No  better  or  braver  body  of  soldiers 
ever  marched  or  fought  than  the  Army  of  the  Potomac.  It  lost 
battles  through  bad  generalship,  and  generals  by  camp  jealous- 
ies and  capital  intrigues.  Thousands  of  its  heroes  fell  in  fruit- 
less fiVhts,  but  it  never  wavered  in  its  superb  confidence  and  cour- 
age. (At  last  it  found  a  leader  worthy  of  itself,  and  after  scores 
of  bloody  victories  ended  the  rebellion,  under  Grant.  )  We  are  not 
yet  far  enough  from  the  passions  of  the  civil  strife  to  do  full  jus- 
tice to  the  genius  of  the  general  who  commanded  the  rebel  army. 
England's  greatest  living  general,  Lord  Wolseley,  who  served 
with  him,  assigns  him  a  foremost  place  among  the  commanders 
of  modern  times.  He  possessed,  beyond  most  leaders,  the  loyal 
and  enthusiastic  devotion  of  his  people,  and  he  was  the  idol  of  his 
army.  In  estimating  the  results  and  awarding  the  credit  of  the 
last  campaign  of  the  war,  we  must  remember  that  General  Lee 
had  defeated  or  baffled  every  opponent  for  three  years,  and  that 
after  a  contest  unparalleled  in  desperate  valor,  frightful  carnage, 
and  matchless  strategy,  he  surrendered  his  sword  to  Grant. 

^The  number  of  men  who  have  led  their  generation,  and  whose 
fame  will  grow  with  time,  is  very  few  in  any  nation.  Their  un- 
approachable position  has  been  reached  because  no  one  else  could 
have  done  their  work.  They  appear  only  in  those  crises  when  the 
life  or  future  of  their  country  is  at  stake.)  The  United  States  are 
surprisingly  rich  in  having  possessed  three  such  exalted  intelli- 
gences in  their  first  century — Washington,  Lincoln,  and  Grant. 
The  Father  of  his  Country  stands  among  the  founders  of  States 
and  defenders  of  the  liberties  of  the  people,  as  pre-eminently 
the  chief  in  both  war  and  peace.  It  is  the  judgment  of  his  con- 
temporaries and  of  posterity,  that  none  other  of  the  soldiers  or 
statesmen  of  the  Revolution  could  have  won  the  war  for  inde- 
pendence as  commander  of  the  armies,  or  consolidated  jealous 
and  warring  colonies  into  a  nation  as  First  President  of  the  Re- 


124  ORATIONS   AND   MEMORIAL   ADDRESSES 

public.  In  our  second  revolution,  the  administration  of  the  Gov- 
ernment, and  the  conduct  of  the  war,  equally  required  supreme 
ability  and  special  adaptation  for  the  emergency.  For  the  one  was 
found  Abraham  Lincoln  and  for  the  other  Ulysses  S.  Grant.  As 
we  look  back  through  the  clarified  atmosphere  of  a  quarter  of  a 
century  of  peace,  congresses  and  cabinets  with  their  petty  strifes 
and  wretched  intrigues  are  obscured  by  the  wisdom  and  work  of 
the  martyr  President.  He  was  a  man  of  the  people  and  always 
in  touch  with  them.  He  strengthened  the  wavering,  lifted  up  the 
faint-hearted,  and  inspired  the  strong. 

From  him  came  the  unfaltering  patriotism  and  unfailing  con- 
fidence which  recruited  the  depleted  army  and  filled  the  exhausted 
treasury.  Lincoln's  faith  and  power  protected  Grant  from  the 
cabals  of  the  camp,  from  the  hostility  of  the  Secretary  of  War, 
from  the  politicians  in  Congress,  and  from  his  constant  and  ex- 
treme peril — the  horror  of  the  country  at  a  method  of  warfare 
which  sacrificed  thousands  of  lives  in  battle  and  assault  for  im- 
mediate results.  But  time  has  demonstrated  that  this  course  was 
wiser  in  tactics  and  more  merciful  to  the  men  than  a  Fabian  policy 
and  larger  losses  from  diseases  and  exposure.  Without  this  im- 
pregnable friend,  Grant's  career  would,  on  many  occasions,  have 
abruptly  closed.  Without  the  general  in  supreme  command, 
upon  whose  genius  he  staked  his  administration  and  to  whose 
skill  he  intrusted  the  fate  of  the  Republic,  there  might  have  been 
added  to  the  list  of  illustrious  patriots  who  have  fallen  victims 
to  the  unreasoning  rage  of  a  defeated  and  demoralized  people, 
the  name  of  Abraham  Lincoln. 

The  most  signal  services  rendered  by  Grant  to  his  country 
were  at  Appomattox,  and  in  his  contest  with  President  Johnson. 
The  passions  aroused  by  the  Civil  War  were  most  inflamed  when 
the  Confederacy  collapsed.  Grief  and  vengeance  are  bad  coun- 
selors. One  serene  intellect  was  possessed  of  an  intuition  which 
was  second  to  prophecy,  and  was  clothed  with  power.  He  saw, 
through  the  vindictive  suggestions  of  the  hour,  that  the  seceded 
States  must  be  admitted  to  the  Union,  and  their  people  vested 
with  all  the  rights  of  American  citizenship  and  all  the  privileges 
of  State  government,  or  the  war  had  been  fought  in  vain.  (He 
sternly  repressed  the  expressions  of  joy  by  his  troops,  as  the 
vanquished  enemy  marched  by,  with  his  famous  order,)"The  war 
is  over,  the  rebels  are  our  countrymen  again,  and  the  best  sign 


GRANT'S  STATUE  AT  GALENA         125 

of  rejoicing  after  the  victory  will  be  to  abstain  from  all  demon- 
strations in  the  field."  (He  gave  to  the  Confederates  their  horses 
and  belongings  and  told  them  to  go  home,  cultivate  their  farms, 
and  repair  the  ravages  of  war  J  He  assured  all,  from  Lee  to  the 
private  soldier,  that  they  would  be  safe  and  unmolested  so  long 
as  they  observed  their  paroles.J 

To  enter  Richmond,  the  capital  of  the  Confederacy,  whose 
spires  had  been  in  sight  of  the  besiegers  so  long,  would  have  been 
a  resistless  temptation  for  a  weaker  man.  But  his  mind  was  not 
on  spectacular  display  or  triumphal  marches  over  humiliated  foes ; 
it  was  bent  upon  peace  and  pacification.  I  know  of  no  scene  in 
our  history  so  dramatic  as  the  meeting  between  Lincoln  and  Grant 
at  the  White  House,  three  days  after  the  surrender  at  Appomat- 
tox. The  President,  who  had  loyally  sustained  the  general,  and 
the  general,  who  had  so  magnificently  responded  to  the  confidence 
of  the  President,  met  for  the  last  time  in  their  lives.  Grant  re- 
turned with  deep  emotion  the  fraternal  grasp  of  the  only  man  in 
the  country  who  fully  understood  and  was  in  complete  accord 
with  the  policy  of  reconciliation  and  repose.  /The  work  of  the 
warrior  was  done,  and  the  labor  of  the  statesman  begun.  Yes- 
terday it  was  destruction,  to-morrow  it  must  be  reconstruction.^ 
That  night  the  bullet  of  the  assassin  ended  the  life  of  our  greatest 
President  since  Washington,  and  postponed  the  settlement  of  sec- 
tional difficulties  and  the  cementing  of  the  Union  for  many  years. 
It  gave  the  country  the  unfortunate  administration  of  Andrew 
Johnson,  with  its  early  frenzy  for  revenge  and  determination  to 
summarily  try  and  execute  all  the  rebel  leaders,  and  its  later  ef- 
fort to  win  their  favor  by  giving  them  back  their  States  without 
pledges  for  the  Unionist  or  the  freedman,  and  the  Government 
without  evidences  of  repentance  or  hostages  for  loyalty.  The 
one  sent  consternation  through  the  South  and  helped  undo  the 
work  at  Appomattox,  and  the  other  unduly  elated  the  controlling 
powers  in  the  rebel  States,  and  necessitated  measures  which  pro- 
duced deplorable  results.  (Grant  stood  with  his  honor  and  his 
fame  between  the  raging  Executive  and  the  Confederate  generals, 
and  prevented  a  reopening  of  the  war ;  he  stood  with  drawn  sword 
between  the  Chief  Magistrate  and  a  revolutionary  Congress,  and 
stayed  another  rebellion.  / 

There  have  been  many  Presidents  of  the  United  States,  and 
the  roll  will  be  indefinitely  extended.     We  have  had  many  bril- 


126  ORATIONS   AND   MEMORIAL   ADDRESSES 

liant  soldiers,  but  only  one  great  general.  The  honors  of  civil 
life  could  add  nothing  to  the  fame  of  General  Grant,  and  it  has 
been  often  argued  that  his  career  in  the  presidency  detracted  from 
his  reputation.  Such  will  not  be  the  judgment  of  the  impartial 
historian.  (  He  was  without  experience  or  training  for  public  life, 
and  unfamiliar  with  politicians  and  their  methods.)  The  spoils 
system,  from  which  he  could  not  escape,  nearly  wrecked  his  first 
administration.  His  mistakes  were  due  to  a  quality  which  is  the 
noblest  of  human  virtues — loyalty  to  friends.)  Even  at  this  short 
distance  from  scenes  so  vivid  in  our  memories,  party  rancor  has 
lost  its  bitterness  and  blindness.  The  President  will  be  judged 
not  by  the  politics  or  policy  of  the  hour,  but  according  to  the 
permanent  value  to  the  Republic  of  the  measures  which  he  pro- 
moted or  defeated.  The  Fifteenth  Amendment  to  the  Constitu- 
tion was  sure  of  adoption  as  one  of  the  logical  results  of  the  war. 
By  it  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  which  had  been  a  glitter- 
ing absurdity  for  generations,  became  part  of  the  fundamental 
law  of  the  land,  and  the  subject  of  pride  and  not  apology  to  the 
American  people.  The  President's  earnest  advocacy  hastened  its 
ratification.  ,On  great  questions  affecting  the  honor  and  credit 
of  the  nation  he  was  always  sound  and  emphatic.  J  A  people  rap- 
idly developing  their  material  resources  are  subject  to  frequent 
financial  conditions  which  cause  stringency  of  money  and  com- 
mercial disaster.  To  secure  quick  fortunes  debts  are  recklessly 
incurred,  and  debt  becomes  the  author  of  a  currency  craze.  Presi- 
dent Grant  set  the  wholesome  fashion  of  resisting  and  reasoning 
with  this  frenzy.  Against  the  advice  of  his  Cabinet  and  many  of 
his  party  admirers  he  vetoed  the  inflation  bill.  He  had  never 
studied  financial  problems,  and  yet  the  same  clear  and  intuitive 
grasp  of  critical  situations  which  saved  the  country  from  bank- 
ruptcy by  defeating  fiat  money,  restored  public  and  individual 
credit  by  the  resumption  of  specie  payments.  The  funding  of  our 
war  debt  at  a  lower  rate  of  interest  made  possible  the  magical 
payment  of  the  principal.  The  admission  of  the  last  of  the  rebel 
States  into  the  Union,  and  universal  amnesty  for  political  of- 
fenses, quickened  the  latent  loyalty  of  the  South,  and  turned  its 
unfettered  and  fiery  energies  to  that  development  of  its  unequaled 
natural  wealth  which  has  added  incalculably  to  the  prosperity 
and  power  of  the  commonwealth.  These  wise  measures  will  ever 
form  a  brilliant  page  in  American  history,  but  the  administration 


GRANT'S  STATUE  AT  GALENA         127 

of  General  Grant  will  have  a  place  in  the  annals  of  the  world  for 
inaugurating  and  successfully  carrying  out  the  policy  of  the  sub- 
mission of  international  disputes  to  arbitration.  The  Geneva 
Conference,  and  the  judicial  settlement  of  the  Alabama  Claims, 
will  grow  in  importance  and  grandeur  with  time.  As  the  nations 
of  the  earth  disband  their  armaments  and  are  governed  by  the 
laws  of  reason  and  humanity,  they  will  recur  to  this  beneficent 
settlement  between  the  United  States  and  Great  Britain,  and  Gen- 
eral Grant's  memorable  words  upon  receiving  the  freedom  of  the 
city  of  London-/-" Although  a  soldier  by  education  and  profes- 
sion, I  have  never  felt  any  sort  of  fondness  for  war,  and  I  have 
never  advocated  it  except  as  a  means  of  peace,,, — and  they  will 
hail  him  as  one  of  the  benefactors  of  mankind.  J 

He  has  been  called  a  silent  man,  and  yet  I  have  often  heard 
him  hold  a  little  company  in  delighted  attention  for  hours  by  the 
charm  of  his  conversation.  His  simple  narrative  was  graphic, 
his  discussion  lucid,  and  subtle  flashes  of  humor  sparkled  through 
his  talk.  He  said  that  when  he  spoke  to  an  audience  his  knees 
knocked  together,  and  this  was  evident  in  his  manner  and  address, 
but  the  speech  was  often  a  welcome  message  to  the  country.  As 
he  was  speaking  one  evening  with  considerable  embarrassment, 
he  pointed  to  a  speaker  who  had  just  entered  the  hall,  and  said : 
"If  I  could  stand  in  his  shoes  and  he  in  mine,  how  much  happier 
for  me  and  better  for  you."  Who  of  this  generation  could  fill 
that  great  place  ?  As  the  years  increase,  events  crowd  upon  each 
other  with  such  volume  that  the  lesser  ones  are  crushed  out  of 
memory.  Most  reputations  are  forgotten  by  the  succeeding  gene- 
ration, and  few  survive  a  century.  In  our  thousandth  year  as  a 
nation,  the  only  statesmen  or  soldiers  of  our  first  hundred  years 
whose  names  will  decorate  the  celebration  will  be  Washington 
and  Hamilton  for  the  beginning,  Webster  for  the  middle  period, 
and  Lincoln  and  Grant  for  the  close. 
/  General  Grant  was  the  product  and  representative  of  the  best 
element  in  our  social  life.  Home  and  its  associations  have  been 
the  training  and  inspiration  of  our  greatest  and  noblest  men.  They 
have  come  from  the  class  which  had  neither  poverty  nor  riches, 
and  which  was  compelled  to  work  for  the  support  of  the  family, 
and  the  education  of  the  children.  Its  members  are  God-fearing 
men,  and  loving,  self-sacrificing  women.  It  gave  us  Lincoln  from 
the  farm,  Garfield  from  the  tow-path,  Sherman  from  the  crowded 


128  ORATIONS   AND   MEMORIAL   ADDRESSES 

house  of  the  brave  and  struggling  widow,  Sheridan  from  the 
humble  cottage,  and  Grant  from  the  home  of  the  country  store- 
keeper of  the  Ohio  wilderness.  These  men  never  lost  their  sym- 
pathy, with  every  human  lot  and  aspiration,  or  the  homely  simplic- 
ity of  their  early  conditions  and  training.  Grant  was  clerk  in 
the  custom  house  and  President  of  the  United  States ;  a  lieutenant 
in  Mexico  and  commander-in-chief  of  the  armies  of  the  Union, 
numbering  over  a  million  men ;  the  unknown  junior  in  a  tanner's 
firm  at  Galena,  and  the  guest  of  emperors  and  kings.  But  the 
memory  of  the  church  of  his  mother  was  ever  visible  in  his  rever- 
ent regard  for  her  teachings.  The  applause  of  soldiers  for  their 
commander,  of  partisans  for  their  chief  leader,  and  of  the  world 
for  one  of  its  most  illustrious  heroes  was  grateful,  but  the  sweet- 
est music  for  him  was  within  the  family  circle,  in  the  loving 
companionship  of  his  wife  and  children,  and  the  prattle  of  his 
grandchildren.  Though  he  received  such  honor  and  recognition 
abroad  and  such  distinction  at  home,  he  was  always,  whether  in 
the  presence  of  royalty  or  of  the  people,  a  modest,  typical  Ameri- 
can citizen. 

Through  the  verses  of  great  poets  runs  a  familiar  strain, 
through  the  works  of  great  composers  an  oft-repeated  tune,  and 
through  the  speeches  of  great  orators  a  recurring  and  character- 
istic thought.  These  are  the  germs  which  exhibit  the  moving  for- 
ces of  their  minds.  During  the  war  "I  propose  to  move  immed- 
iately upon  your  works,"  "Unconditional  surrender,"  "I  shall 
take  no  backward  step,"  "I  propose  to  fight  it  out  on  this  line,  if 
it  takes  all  summer,"  are  the  beacon-lights  of  the  plans  and  strat- 
egy of  Grant,  the  soldier.  At  Appomattox,  "The  war  is  over," 
"The  rebels  are  our  countrymen  again" ;  at  the  threshold  of  the 
Presidency,  "Let  us  have  peace" ;  on  his  bed  of  agony  and  death 
at  Mount  McGregor,  when  his  power  of  speech  was  gone,  writing 
to  a  Confederate  general  by  his  bedside,  "Much  as  I  suffer,  I  do 
it  with  pleasure,  if  by  that  suffering  can  be  accomplished  the 
union  of  my  country."  These  sententious  phrases  are  the  indices 
of  the  labors,  the  aspirations,  and  the  prayers  of  Grant,  the  states- 
man and  the  patriot.       r 


MEMORIAL  OF   GENERAL  SHERMAN 


ADDRESS  BEFORE  THE  LEGISLATURE  OF  THE  STATE  OF  NEW  YORK, 
AT  THE  SERVICES  IN  MEMORY  OF  GENERAL  WILLIAM  TECUM- 
SEH  SHERMAN,  MARCH  29,   1 892. 

Senators  and  Members  of  Assembly:  The  passions  of 
civil  war  usually  survive  centuries.  We  cannot  yet  impartially 
and  calmly  estimate  the  ability  and  services  of  Hamilton  and  Jef- 
ferson. Their  names  still  stand  for  antagonistic  principles  and 
antagonized  followers.  But  the  issues  of  the  Rebellion  were 
buried  with  its  dead.  That  struggle  was  unique,  both  in  magni- 
tude and  settlement.  It  was  an  earthquake  which  rent  asunder 
a  continent  and  plunged  into  cavernous  depths  millions  of  men 
and  money,  and  the  shackles  of  the  slaves.  It  closed,  and  the 
survivors,  freed  from  the  causes  of  contention,  were  united  for 
the  upbuilding  of  the  new  nation.  Prior  to  the  war  we  were  sin- 
gularly provincial  and  insular,  but  we  have  since  grown  to  be 
as  radically  liberal  and  cosmopolitan.  Then  our  judgments  of 
statesmen  and  measures  were  governed  by  considerations  which 
were  territorial  or  inherited.  Now  those  who  were  in  the  front 
and  heat  of  the  great  battle  can  fairly  view  and  freely  weigh  the 
merits  of  their  friends  and  foes.  We  can  eliminate  our  feelings, 
our  prejudices,  and  our  convictions  upon  the  purposes  for  which 
they  fought,  and  contrast  Grant  and  Lee,  Sherman  and  Joe  John- 
ston, Sheridan  and  Beauregard,  as  to  the  genius  and  ability  with 
which  they  planned  and  played  the  game  of  war,  with  equal  can- 
dor and  better  light  than  the  historian  of  the  future.  Yesterday 
General  Sherman  was  the  last  of  that  triumvirate  of  great  cap- 
tains, Grant,  Sherman,  and  Sheridan,  who  were  the  most  distin- 
guished soldiers  of  our  country  and  of  our  times,  and  a  familiar 
figure  in  our  midst.  His  presence  revived  and  embodied  the  glor- 
ies and  the  memories  of  the  marches  and  the  victories  of  the  he- 
roes who  fought,  and  of  the  heroes  who  had  died,  for  the  preser- 
vation of  the  Union.  To-day  we  commemorate  his  life  and 
deeds ;  and  the  Civil  War  is  history. 

General  Sherman's  ancestors  had  been  noted  for  many  gene- 
rations for  their  culture,  ability,  and  intellectual  power.  His  f ath- 
Vol.  1—9  129 


130  ORATIONS   AND   MEMORIAL   ADDRESSES 

er  was  a  judge  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  Ohio,  and  his  grand- 
father of  a  Connecticut  court,  while  the  grandfather  of  the  Con- 
necticut judge  was  a  Puritan  clergyman,3  who  came  to  Massa- 
chusetts in  1634,  in  company  with  a  warrior  relative,  Captain 
John  Sherman,  the  ancestor  of  Roger,  the  signer  of  the  Declara- 
tion of  Independence.  Much  has  been  said,  but  the  whole  can 
never  be  written,  of  the  influence  of  the  Puritan  stock  upon  the 
formation  and  development  of  the  United  States,  and  the  destinies 
of  mankind.  They  alone  of  all  colonists  emigrated,  not  to  im- 
prove their  worldly  condition,  but  to  secure  liberty  of  conscience 
and  to  live  under  a  government  of  just  and  equal  laws.  All  through 
the  career  of  General  Sherman  the  spirit  of  Cromwell  and  the 
Covenanter  was  the  motive  power  of  his  action.  His  principle 
of  war  was  to  use  up  and  consume  the  resources  of  the  enemy. 
The  destruction  of  Atlanta  and  the  devastating  march  through 
Georgia  and  the  Carolinas  were  upon  Puritan  lines.  The  ene- 
mies of  his  country  were  as  much  to  his  mind  the  enemies  of  the 
Lord  as  were  the  Cavaliers  of  Prince  Rupert  to  Cromwell  and 
his  Ironsides.  He  was  by  nature  the  most  genial,  lovable,  and 
companionable  of  men,  but  the  mailed  hand  and  merciless  pur- 
pose followed  any  attack  on  the  things  he  held  sacred.  This  ap- 
pears not  only  in  his  campaigns,  but  also  in  his  dispatches  to 
Generals  Grant  and  Halleck :  "I  will  make  the  interior  of  Geor- 
gia feel  the  weight  of  war."  "The  utter  destruction  of  its  roads, 
houses,  and  people  will  cripple  their  military  resources."  "I  at- 
tach more  importance  to  these  deep  incisions  into  the  enemy's 
country  because  this  war  differs  from  European  wars  in  this  par- 
ticular: We  are  not  only  fighting  hostile  armies,  but  a  hostile 
people,  and  must  make  old  and  young,  rich  and  poor,  feel  the 
hard  hand  of  war  as  well  as  their  organized  armies."  And  in  his 
letter  demanding  the  surrender  of  Savannah  he  says :  "Should 
I  be  forced  to  assault,  or  to  the  slower  and  surer  process  of 
starvation,  I  shall  then  feel  justified  in  resorting  to  the  harshest 
measures,  and  shall  make  little  effort  to  restrain  my  army,  burn- 
ing to  avenge  the  national  wrong,  which  they  attach  to  Savannah 
and  the  other  large  cities  which  have  been  so  prominent  in  drag- 
ging our  country  into  civil  war." 

8Rev.  John  Sherman,  the  great-great-greatgrandfather  of  General  Sherman,  was  born 
in  Stratford,  Conn.,  Feb.  8,  1651.  It  was  his  father,  Samuel  Sherman,  who  emigrated 
to  Massachusetts. — Ed. 


MEMORIAL  OF  GENERAL  SHERMAN  131 

This  was  the  language  of  the  Puritan  soldier.  It  was  born 
and  bred  in  the  children  of  the  people  who  first  separated  Church 
from  State,  and  went  to  the  stake  for  believing  and  declaring  that 
the  will  of  God  could  be  one  way,  and  the  will  of  the  king  the 
other,  and  their  allegiance  was  to  the  Lord.  It  was  the  same  con- 
science which  beheaded  Charles  L,  and  threw  the  tea  into  Boston 
Harbor.  Marston  Moor,  Lexington,  and  the  March  to  the  Sea 
were  fruits  of  the  same  tree.  Sherman  was  a  soldier,  educated 
by  the  Government  of  the  United  States,  and  the  Republic  was 
his  love  and  his  religion.  The  intensity  of  his  passion  for  the 
Nation  would  in  other  times  and  surroundings  have  made  him  a 
general  in  the  Parliamentary  army,  or  the  leader  of  a  New  Eng- 
land colony. 

I  shall  never  forget  a  dramatic  scene  at  a  notable  gathering 
in  New  York,  when  Charles  Sumner  indirectly  attacked  Presi- 
dent Grant,  as  a  failure  in  civil  affairs,  by  ridiculing  Miles  Stan- 
dish.  General  Sherman  was  a  stranger  to  a  New  York  audience, 
and  none  knew  that  he  could  speak.  Few  men  would  have  dared 
reply  to  the  world-famed  orator.  But  he  had  assailed  the  two 
tenderest  sentiments  of  General  Sherman — his  love  and  admira- 
tion for  Grant,  and  his  pride  in  his  profession  of  a  soldier.  With- 
out any  opportunity  for  preparation,  but  without  hesitation,  he 
immediately  arose  to  meet  this  unexpected  and  surprising  attack. 
Defense,  under  such  conditions,  would  with  most  untrained  speak- 
ers have  degenerated  into  abuse,  but  with  Sherman  it  became  the 
most  impressive  eloquence.  It  was  a  direct  and  simple  statement 
of  his  faith  in  his  friend,  and  a  description  of  the  merits  and  mis- 
sion of  the  soldier  which  was  like  the  brilliant  dash  and  resistless 
momentum  of  a  charge  of  cavalry  through  the  broken  squares  of 
the  enemy.  It  was  a  speech  Captain  Miles  Standish  might  have 
made  after  two  hundred  and  fifty  years  of  American  opportunity, 
and  the  mighty  soul  of  the  Puritan  captain  seemed  inspiring  the 
voice  and  the  presence  of  his  advocate. 

The  same  qualities  made  him  the  most  amiable  and  lovable 
of  men  and  the  most  rigid  of  disciplinarians.  His  heart  was  eas- 
ily touched  and  his  sympathies  aroused  by  the  distress  or  want  or 
sorrow  of  others,  but  he  was  the  incarnation  of  the  vengeance 
of  the  law  upon  military  crimes.  A  corps  commander  of  the  Army 
of  the  Potomac  once  said  to  him:  "General  Sherman,  we  had 
trouble  in  enforcing  strict  obedience  to  orders,  because  the  find- 


132  ORATIONS   AND   MEMORIAL   ADDRESSES 

ings  of  the  courts  martial  had  to  be  sent  to  President  Lincoln  for 
approval  in  extreme  cases,  and  he  would  never  approve  a  sentence 
of  death.  What  did  you  do  ?"  "I  shot  them  first,"  was  the  grew- 
some  reply. 

General  Sherman  was  destined  from  his  birth  for  the  career 
which  has  become  one  of  the  brightest  pages  in  his  country's  his- 
tory. The  hero  among  the  early  settlers  of  the  Ohio  valley  was 
that  brave  and  chivalric  Indian  chief,  Tecumseh,1  who  had  com- 
manded the  admiration  of  the  whites  by  his  prowess,  and  their 
good  will  by  his  kindness.  He  fought  to  exterminate,  but  he  could 
as  quickly  forgive  as  he  fiercely  and  savagely  struck.  The  quali- 
ties of  this  wild  warrior  became  part  of  the  characteristics  of  his 
namesake.  It  was  ruthless  and  relentless  war  with  the  enemy  in 
the  field,  but  no  commander  ever  granted  more  generous  terms  to 
the  vanquished,  or  was  so  ready  to  assist  with  purse  and  influence 
a  fallen  foe. 

His  father,  Judge  Sherman,  died  suddenly,  leaving  his  widow 
with  little  means  and  a  family  of  eleven  children.  The  helpful- 
ness of  the  American  family  when  thrown  upon  its  own  resources, 
and  the  ready  and  practical  sympathy  of  American  communities, 
so  extended  as  to  convey,  not  charity,  but  compliment,  has  no  bet- 
ter example  than  in  the  story  of  this  household,  and  the  success 
in  life  of  its  members.  The  Bench  and  the  Bar  felt  that  the  boys 
were  the  wards  of  the  profession.  Ohio's  leading  lawyer  and 
United  States  Senator,  the  Honorable  Thomas  Ewing,  said,  "Give 
me  one,  but  the  brightest,"  and  the  brothers  and  sisters  of  the 
future  captor  of  Atlanta  answered,  "Take  Cump,  he  is  the  smart- 
est." This  profound  jurist  and  keen  observer  of  character  saw 
the  future  general  in  this  quick,  nervous,  intelligent,  pugnacious 
boy,  with  his  Indian  warrior  name,  and  appointed  him  to  the  West 
Point  Military  Academy.  His  fertile  and  versatile  mind  pushed 
its  inquiries  into  too  many  directions,  and  explored  fields  too  di- 
verse for  that  methodical  and  accurate  mastery  of  the  curriculum 
which  makes  a  valedictorian,  but  not  always  a  man.  Neverthe- 
less, he  stood  sixth  in  his  class,  and  was  its  most  original  and  at- 
tractive member.  He  had  a  fondness  for  topographical  studies, 
and  a  keen  eye  and  natural  and  trained  instinct  for  the  oppor- 
tunities for  defense  and  attack  which  could  be  utilized  in  the 

iChief  of  the  Shawnee  Tribe,  born  about  1770.     He  joined  the  British  in  the  War  of 
1812-14,  and  was  killed  at  the  battle  of  the  Thames,  Oct.  5,  1813.— Ed. 


MEMORIAL  OF  GENERAL  SHERMAN  133 

places  where  he  was  stationed  and  the  country  over  which  he 
traveled. 

His  first  service  was  in  Florida,  and  his  duties  carried  him, 
during  his  six  years  in  the  South,  through  South  Carolina,  Ala- 
bama, Georgia,  and  the  adjoining  counties  of  Tennessee.  The 
great  debate  as  to  the  powers  of  the  General  Government  and  the 
reserved  rights  of  the  States  was  at  its  height.  General  Jackson 
had  placed  his  iron  heel  upon  John  C.  Calhoun  and  registered  the 
mighty  oath,  "By  the  Eternal,  the  Union  of  these  States  must 
and  shall  be  preserved."  South  Carolina  was  specially  independ- 
ent and  defiant.  Threats  of  disunion  met  Sherman  at  every  social 
gathering.  Webster's  masterly  and  unequaled  argument  and  elo- 
quence had  converted  the  North  and  thousands  of  broadminded 
men  in  the  South  to  the  idea  that  the  United  States  was  a  nation, 
with  the  right  to  use  all  the  resources  of  the  country  to  enforce 
its  laws  and  maintain  its  authority.  The  possibility  of  these  ques- 
tions being  decided  by.  the  arbitrament  of  war  was  ever  present 
to  the  suggestive  thought  of  this  young  lieutenant.  The  line  of 
the  Tennessee  River,  the  steep  ascent  of  Kenesaw  Mountain,  the 
military  value  of  Chattanooga  and  Atlanta,  were  impressed  upon 
the  intellect  of  the  maturing  strategist,  to  materialize  twenty  years 
afterward  in  the  severance  and  ruin  of  the  Confederacy  by  his 
triumphant  March  to  the  Sea. 

Sherman  had  been  brought  up  and  trained  in  the  school  of 
Hamilton,  of  Webster,  and  of  Henry  Clay.  His  Bible  was  the 
Constitution.  He  had  imagination  but  no  sentiment ;  passion,  but 
no  pathos.  Believing  slavery  to  have  guarantees  in  the  Constitu- 
tion, he  would  have  unsheathed  his  sword  as  readily  against  a 
John  Brown  raid  as  he  did  at  the  firing  upon  Fort  Sumter.  His 
imagination  led  him  to  glorify  and  idealize  the  Republic.  Its 
grandeur,  its  growth,  and  its  possibilities  captured  and  possessed 
his  heart  and  mind.  The  isolation  and  loneliness  of  the  life  in 
frontier  forts  destroy  many  young  officers.  Their  energies  are 
exhausted  and  their  habits  and  principles  demoralized  by  dissipa- 
tion, or  their  faculties  paralyzed  by  idleness.  But  the  card  table 
or  the  carouse  had  no  attractions  for  Sherman.  His  time  on  the 
plains  was  fully  occupied.  He  was  building  railroads  across  the 
continent  on  paper,  and  peopling  those  vast  regions  with  pros- 
perous settlements,  long  before  they  had  any  roads  but  the  paths 
of  the  buffalo,  and  any  inhabitants  but  roving  tribes  of  wild  In- 


134  ORATIONS   AND   MEMORIAL   ADDRESSES 

dians.  He  could  never  understand  the  lamentation,  so  common, 
over  the  extermination  of  the  buffalo.  The  patient  oxen  drawing 
the  plow  through  the  furrow,  and  the  lowing  herds  winding 
home  at  sunset,  seemed  to  him  to  have  replaced  the  wild  and 
useless  bison  with  the  sources  of  individual  and  national  wealth 
and  happiness.  He  would  have  destroyed  the  Indians,  because 
with  their  occupancy  of  extensive  and  fertile  territories,  which 
they  would  neither  cultivate  nor  sell,  and  the  wars  with  them, 
which  frightened  settlers  from  their  borders,  they  retarded  the 
development  and  checked  the  majestic  march  of  his  country  to 
the  first  place  among  the  nations  of  the  earth. 

This  intense  nationalist  and  accomplished  soldier  was  selected 
by  the  State  of  Louisiana  to  be  the  superintendent  and  organizer 
of  her  State  Military  School.2  The  veteran  who,  bringing  to  the 
business  of  banking  little  more  than  unswerving  integrity,  had 
failed,  and  whose  directness  of  purpose  and  transparent  candor 
were  disgusted  with  the  law,  found  in  this  field  of  instruction  a 
most  pleasant  and  congenial  occupation.  He  was  at  the  head  of 
a  university  which  was  fitting  youth  for  careers  in  civil  life,  and 
training  them,  if  need  were,  to  fight  for  their  country.  The  in- 
stitution grew  so  rapidly  and  wisely  that  the  attention  of  the 
State  authorities  was  attracted  to  its  able  and  brilliant  principal. 
He  did  not  suspect  treason,  and  they  were  organizing  rebellion. 
To  capture  this  born  leader  of  men  was  to  start  with  an  army. 
Social  blandishments,  political  pressure,  and  appeals  to  ambition 
were  skillfully  applied  to  his  purposes  and  principles.  Suddenly 
the  truth  burst  upon  his  frank  nature.  He  was  poor,  and  had  a 
large  and  helpless  family.  He  held  an  honorable,  congenial,  lu- 
crative, and  permanent  position.  The  future,  if  he  abandoned 
his  place,  was  dark  and  doubtful,  but  the  Union  was  in  danger, 
and  he  did  not  hesitate  a  moment.  His  letter  of  resignation  to 
the  Governor  of  Louisiana  reads  like  a  bugle  call  of  patriotism : 
"As  I  occupy  a  quasi-military  position  under  the  laws  of  the 
State,  I  deem  it  proper  to  acquaint  you  that  I  accepted  such  posi- 
tion when  Louisiana  was  a  State  in  the  Union,  and  when  the 
motto  of  this  seminary  was  inserted  in  marble  over  the  main  door : 
'By  the  liberality  of  the  General  Government  of  the  United  States. 
The  Union:  Esto  perpetual  Recent  events  foreshadow  a  great 
change,  and  it  becomes  all  men  to  chose.     If  Louisiana  with- 

*At  Alexandria,  Rapides  Parish. — Ed. 


MEMORIAL  OF  GENERAL  SHERMAN  135 

draws  from  the  Federal  Union  I  prefer  to  maintain  my  allegiance 
to  the  Constitution  as  long  as  a  fragment  of  it  survives.  .  . 
On  no  earthly  account  will  I  do  any  act  or  think  any  thought 
hostile  to  or  in  defiance  of  the  old  Government  of  the  United 
States." 

Events  move  rapidly  in  revolutions,  and  the  situations  are 
always  dramatic.  Captain  Sherman  is  in  Washington,  offering 
his  services  to  the  Government,  Lincoln  is  President,  Seward  Sec- 
retary of  State,  Chase  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  John  Sherman 
the  new  United  States  Senator  from  Ohio,  and  old  General  Scott 
in  command  of  the  army.  Nobody  believes  there  will  be  war. 
It  is  the  general  conviction  that,  if  the  Southern  States  are  rash 
enough  to  attempt  to  secede,  the  rebellion  will  be  stamped  out  in 
three  months,  and  the  campaign  will  be  a  picnic.  Alone  in  that 
great  throng  of  office-seekers  and  self-seekers  stands  this  aggres- 
sive and  self-sacrificing  patriot.  He  understands  and  appreciates 
better  than  any  man  living  the  courage,  resources,  and  desperate 
determination  of  the  South.  "They  mean  war,"  he  cries;  "they 
will  soon  have  armies  in  the  field  officered  and  led  by  trained  and 
able  soldiers.  It  will  require  the  whole  power  of  the  Govern- 
ment and  three  years  of  time  to  subdue  them,  if  they  get  organized 
before  you  are  on  them."  Congressmen  laughed  at  the  wild  talk 
of  the  dramatic  alarmist,  old  army  officers  significantly  tapped 
their  foreheads,  and  said,  "Poor  Sherman,  it  is  too  bad";  and 
the  President  answered  coldly,  "Well,  Captain,  I  guess  we  will 
manage  to  keep  house." 

The  Confederate  army  had  concentrated  at  Manassas,  threat- 
ening Washington.  There  were  few  West  Point  officers  avail- 
able, and  Captain  Sherman  was  commissioned  a  colonel  and  given 
command  of  a  brigade  at  Bull  Run.  He  was  the  one  earnest 
man  among  the  crowd  of  triflers  in  uniform  and  citizen's  dress 
who  flocked  to  the  field.  Congress  adjourned  to  see  the  rebels 
run,  and  congressmen  led  the  tumultuous  flight  from  the  battle 
to  Washington.  Holding  in  hand  all  there  was  of  his  brigade 
which  had  not  stampeded,  exposing  himself  with  reckless  courage, 
and  keeping  a  semblance  of  discipline  which  did  much  to  prevent 
pursuit  by  the  victorious  enemy,  Colonel  Sherman  rode  in  to 
Washington  to  acknowledge  so  freely  the  faults  on  the  field,  and 
to  denounce  so  vigorously  the  utterly  inadequate  preparations  for 
civil  war,  that  he  again  fell  into  disrepute,  was  again  assailed  as 


136  ORATIONS   AND   MEMORIAL   ADDRESSES 

a  madman,  and  banished  to  the  West.  But  Ohio  never  lost  con- 
fidence in  him,  and  demanded  and  secured  his  appointment  in 
the  long  list  of  brigadier  generals. 

The  senseless  clamor  which  frightened  the  Cabinet  and  the 
War  Office,  by  shouting  "On  to  Richmond,"  was  not  appeased  by 
the  disgrace  and  slaughter  of  Bull  Run  and  Manassas.  The 
frightful  recoil,  which  had  followed  obedience  to  the  popular  cry, 
only  infuriated  the  politicians.  If  they  could  not  put  down  the 
rebellion  in  a  day,  they  could  at  least  punish  those  who  had  in- 
sisted upon  the  power  of  the  Confederacy.  There  was  a  signifi- 
cant display  of  that  singular  quality  of  human  nature  which  leads 
people  who  have  been  warned  against  a  rash  act,  to  turn  in  de- 
feat and  disappointment  and  rend  the  prophet  who  foretold  the 
result.  Sherman,  from  the  more  commanding  position  of  his 
superior  rank,  was  once  more  announcing  the  strength,  power, 
and  resources  of  the  rebels  in  Kentucky  and  Tennessee.  He 
boldly  proclaimed  that  the  forces  collected  to  hold  those  States 
were  so  absurdly  inadequate  that  another  and  more  fatal  Bull 
Run  was  sure  to  follow,  unless  the  means  were  equal  to  the  emer- 
gency. The  Government,  the  press,  and  the  people  united  in  con- 
demning his  terrorizing  utterances,  and  for  the  third  time  he  was 
sent  into  retirement  as  a  lunatic.  Accumulating  perils  and  provi- 
dential escapes  from  hopeless  disasters  speedily  demonstrated  that 
this  madman  was  a  seer,  and  this  alarmist  a  general. 

Then,  for  the  glory  of  the  American  army  and  the  incalcul- 
able advantage  of  the  Union  cause,  came  the  opportunity  for  the 
most  brilliant  soldier  and  magnetic  commander  in  our  annals. 
The  control  of  the  Mississippi,  the  allegiance  of  the  Border  States, 
and  the  existence  of  the  Western  army  were  in  gravest  peril  at 
Shiloh.  Sherman  was  at  the  front  on  those  two  desperate  days, 
holding  his  men  by  his  personal  example  and  presence.  He  was 
as  much  the  inspiration  of  the  fight  as  the  white  plume  of  Henry 
of  Navarre  at  Ivry.  Though  wounded  he  still  led,  and  though 
three  horses  were  shot  under  him  he  mounted  the  fourth.  Gen- 
eral Halleck,  then  commander-in-chief  of  all  the  national  forces, 
reported  to  the  Government  that  "General  Sherman  saved  the 
fortunes  of  the  day  on  the  6th,  and  contributed  largely  to  the 
glorious  victory  of  the  7th." 

Critics  and  historians  will  forever  discuss  the  men  and  the 
movements  of  the  Civil  War.    As  time  passes,  and  future  events 


MEMORIAL  OF  GENERAL  SHERMAN  137 

crowd  the  record,  most  of  the  figures  of  that  bloody  drama,  now 
so  well  known  to  us,  will  disappear.  It  requires,  even  after  the 
lapse  of  only  a  quarter  of  a  century,  an  effort  and  a  history  to 
recall  many  names  which  were  then  household  words.  But  Sher- 
man's March  to  the  Sea,  like  the  retreat  of  Xenophon  and  his 
ten  thousand  Greeks,  will  arouse  through  all  ages  the  enthusiasm 
of  the  schoolboy,  the  fervor  of  the  orator,  and  the  admiration  of 
the  strategist.  When  at  last,  with  a  picked  army  of  sixty  thou- 
sand veterans,  Sherman  was  encamped  at  Atlanta,  he  had  grasped 
and  materialized  the  factors  of  success  in  the  dream  of  his  youth. 
He  bombarded  the  President  and  the  commanding  general  with 
letters  and  telegrams:  "I  can  divide  the  Confederacy,  destroy 
the  source  of  its  supplies,  devastate  its  fertile  regions,  and  starve 
its  armies."  "Give  me  the  word  'go,'  "  burdened  the  wires  and 
the  dispatch  boxes.  The  Cabinet  said :  "Your  army  will  be  lost, 
floundering  in  the  heart  of  the  enemy's  country  and  cut  off  from 
your  base  of  supplies."  The  headquarters  staff  said:  "Turn 
back  upon  the  course  you  have  traversed,  and  destroy  Hood's 
army,  which  threatens  your  communications  and  your  rear,  and 
then  we  will  discuss  the  question  with  you."  Sherman  detached 
that  most  remarkable  general,  Thomas,  with  a  force  sufficient,  in 
his  judgment,  to  take  care  of  Hood,  and  that  superb  officer  vindi- 
cated the  trust  reposed  in  him  by  pulverizing  the  rebel  army. 

At  last  the  President  gave  an  approval  so  reluctant  that  it 
threw  the  responsibility  upon  General  Sherman,  and  Grant  gave 
his  assent.  Said  General  Sherman  to  me,  in  one  of  the  confi- 
dences so  characteristic  of  his  candid  mind:  "I  believed  that 
this  permission  would  be  withdrawn,  and  sent  immediately  a  de- 
tachment to  destroy  the  wires  for  sixty  miles.  I  never  felt  so 
free  and  so  sure  as  when  the  officer  returned  and  reported  the 
work  done.  Years  afterward  I  discovered  an  official  memoran- 
dum that,  'owing  to  the  sudden  interruption  by  the  rebels  of  com- 
munications with  Atlanta  a  message,  countermanding  the  assent 
to  General  Sherman  to  march  across  the  country  to  Savannah, 
could  not  be  delivered.'  "  Upon  such  slender  threads  hang  the 
fate  of  campaigns  and  the  fame  of  illustrious  men. 

The  armies  of  Tennessee  and  of  Georgia  had  the  dash  and 
daring,  the  free  and  breezy  swing  and  ways,  and  the  familiarity 
with  their  officers,  characteristic  of  the  West.  They  idolized  their 
fatherly  but  cyclonic  commander.     This  superb  specimen  of  the 


138  ORATIONS   AND   MEMORIAL   ADDRESSES 

pure  Puritan  stock,  born  and  bred  in  the  West,  careful  of  every 
detail  which  promoted  their  comfort  and  efficiency,  and  careless 
of  the  form  and  dignity  which  hedge  in  authority,  won  their  love 
and  admiration.  Most  veteran  armies,  with  their  lines  of  com- 
munication and  supplies  abandoned,  marching  into  the  enemy's 
country,  ignorant  of  the  food  and  forage  which  might  be  found, 
or  the  forces  which  might  cross  their  path,  would  have  murmured 
or  hesitated.  But  the  soldier,  who  with  only  a  day's  rations  in 
his  haversack,  called  out  to  his  grim  and  thoughtful  general  as 
he  rode  by,  "Uncle  Billy,  I  suppose  we  are  going  to  meet  Grant 
in  Richmond,"  expressed  the  faith  of  his  comrades.  If  Rich- 
mond was  their  objective  point,  nor  mountains,  nor  rivers,  nor 
hostile  peoples,  nor  opposing  armies,  could  prevent  Sherman  from 
taking  them  there  triumphantly.  The  capture  of  Atlanta  had 
aroused  the  wildest  enthusiasm  among  the  people.  For  the  thirty 
days  during  which  the  victors  were  lost  in  the  interior  of  the 
Confederacy,  the  North  listened  with  gravest  apprehension  and 
bated  breath.  Then  the  conquering  host  were  on  the  shores  of 
the  sea,  Savannah  was  laid  at  the  feet  of  President  Lincoln  by 
their  general  as  a  Christmas  present,  the  Confederacy  was  di- 
vided and  its  resources  destroyed,  and  William  Tecumseh  Sher- 
man became  "one  of  the  few,  the  immortal  names,  that  were  not 
born  to  die." 

Having  placed  his  army  across  all  the  roads  by  which  General 
Lee  could  escape  from  Richmond,  Sherman  left  his  quarters  to 
visit  Lincoln,  then  with  Grant  at  City  Point. 

In  April,  1861,  Captain  Sherman  had  informed  the  President 
in  the  White  House,  that  "he  might  as  well  attempt  to  put  out 
the  flames  of  a  burning  house  with  a  squirt  gun  as  to  put  down 
the  rebellion  with  seventy-five  thousand  men,  and  that  the  whole 
military  power  of  the  North  should  be  organized  at  once  for  a 
desperate  struggle" — to  be  laughed  out  of  Washington  as  a  luna- 
tic. Four  years  had  passed.  Two  millions  of  men  had  been  mus- 
tered in ;  five  hundred  thousand  had  been  killed  in  battle,  or  died 
in  the  hospital,  or  had  been  disabled  for  life,  and  in  March,  1865, 
General  Sherman  stood  in  the  presence  of  the  President.  It  was 
the  original  faculty  of  Mr.  Lincoln,  that  he  could  so  acknowl- 
edge a  mistake  as  to  make  it  the  most  delicate  and  significant  com- 
pliment. "Mr.  President,"  said  Sherman,  "I  left  in  camp  seventy- 
five  thousand  of  the  best  troops  ever  gathered  in  the  field,  and  if 


MEMORIAL  OF  GENERAL  SHERMAN  139 

Lee  escapes  Grant,  they  can  take  care  of  him."  "I  shall  not  feel 
secure,  nor  that  they  are  safe,"  said  the  President,  "until  I  know 
you  are  back  again  and  in  command."  "I  can  capture  Jefferson 
Davis  and  his  cabinet,"  said  General  Sherman.  "Let  them  es- 
cape," was  the  suggestion  of  this  wisest  of  Presidents ;  "and  above 
all,  let  there  be  no  more  bloodshed,  if  that  is  possible."  General 
Joseph  Johnston  and  the  last  army  of  the  Confederacy  in  Sher- 
man's hands,  the  terms  of  reconstruction  and  reconciliation  which 
he  had  heard  from  Lincoln  in  that  final  and  memorable  interview 
submitted  as  the  conditions  of  surrender,  the  President's  assassin- 
ation and  its  dread  consequences,  the  contemptuous  repudiation  of 
his  terms  by  Secretary  Stanton,  the  grand  review  of  his  soldiers 
by  the  Cabinet  and  Congress  at  Washington,  the  indignant  refusal 
of  the  proffered  hand  of  the  Secretary  of  War  in  the  presence  of 
the  Government  and  the  people,  the  farewell  to  and  muster  out  of 
his  beloved  army — and  one  of  the  most  picturesque,  romantic,  and 
brilliant  military  careers  of  modern  times  came  to  a  close.  Its 
ending  had  all  the  striking  and  spectacular  setting  of  its  course ; 
and  its  adventures,  achievements,  and  surprises  will  be  for  all 
time  the  delight  of  the  historian  and  the  inspiration  of  the  soldier. 

The  later  years  of  most  heroes  have  been  buffeted  with  storms, 
or  have  come  to  a  tragic  end.  Caesar,  in  the  supreme  hour  of  his 
triumph,  fell  at  the  foot  of  Pompey's  statues,  pierced  by  the  dag- 
gers of  his  friends.  Napoleon  fretted  out  his  great  soul  in  the 
solitude  of  St.  Helena.  Wellington  lost  popularity  and  prestige 
in  the  strifes  of  parties.  Washington  was  worried  and  wearied 
into  his  grave  by  the  cares  of  office  and  the  intrigues  of  his  ene- 
mies— enemies,  as  he  believed,  also  of  his  country.  Grant's  death 
was  hastened  and  his  last  days  clouded  by  the  machinations  of 
politicians  and  the  crimes  of  trusted  associates.  But  General 
Sherman,  in  retirement,  led  an  ideal  life.  Only  Von  Moltke 
shares  with  him  the  peaceful  pleasures  of  content  and  of  his  peo- 
ple's love. 

The  Fathers  of  the  Republic  were  fearful  of  military  influence 
and  apprehensive  of  dangers  to  liberty  and  perils  to  the  life  of 
the  young  Republic.  Some  of  them  even  distrusted  Washington 
and  a  dictatorship.  After  him  they  set  aside  all  the  Revolutionary 
generals  and  selected  statesmen  for  Presidents.  But,  with  con- 
fidence in  the  power  and  perpetuity  of  the  nation,  came  the  popu- 
lar strength  of  the  successful  soldier.     None  of  our  heroes  have 


140  ORATIONS   AND   MEMORIAL   ADDRESSES 

been  able  to  resist  the  fascinations  and  the  dangers  of  the  chief 
magistracy,  except  General  Sherman.  All  of  our  great  captains 
would  have  led  happier  lives,  and  left  their  fame  less  obscured, 
if  they  had  spurned  the  temptation.  In  nearly  every  canvass 
since  Jackson,  one  or  both  of  the  great  parties  have  had  military 
candidates.  General  Sherman  had  such  peculiar  and  striking 
elements  of  popularity,  that  party  leaders  begged  and  besought 
him  to  carry  their  standard.  His  election  would  have  been  a  cer- 
tainty, and  he  knew  it.  But  his  answer  was,  "I  will  not  accept 
if  nominated,  and  I  will  not  serve  if  elected."  "In  every  man's 
life  occurs  an  epoch  when  he  must  choose  his  own  career,  and 
when  he  may  not  throw  off  the  responsibility,  or  tamely  place  his 
destiny  in  the  hands  of  his  friends.  Mine  occurred  in  Louisiana, 
when,  in  1861,  alone  in  the  midst  of  a  people  blinded  by  supposed 
wrongs,  I  resolved  to  stand  by  the  Union  as  long  as  a  fragment 
of  it  survived  on  which  to  cling.  I  remember  well  the  experiences 
of  Generals  Jackson,  Harrison,  Taylor,  Grant,  Hayes,  and  Gar- 
field, all  elected  because  of  their  military  services,  and  am  warned, 
not  encouraged  by  their  sad  experiences."  Not  the  least  of  the 
dramatic  memories  which  will  distinguish  this  most  sincere  and 
original  actor  in  the  drama  of  life  will  be,  that  he  will  remain 
forever  the  only  American  who  refused  the  Presidency  of  the 
United  States.  Though  declining  political  preferment  for  him- 
self, he  rejoiced  in  the  honors  bestowed  upon  any  member  of  his 
old  army.  "I  am  proud,"  he  said,  "that  Ben  Harrison  is  our 
President ;  that  Foraker,  Hovey,  Fitler,  and  Humphreys  are  Gov- 
ernors of  the  great  States  of  Ohio,  Indiana,  Illinois,  and  Kansas, 
all  'my  boys,'  "  and  he  would  have  been  wild  with  delight  if  he 
could  have  added  Slocum,  Governor  of  New  York. 

His  daily  walks  were  a  series  of  triumphal  processions.  The 
multitudes  never  obtruded  upon  his  privacy,  but  separated  as  he 
approached,  and  united,  when  he  passed,  to  express  their  individ- 
ual and  collective  affection  and  gratitude.  The  encampments  of 
the  Grand  Army  were  tame  in  his  absence,  but  his  presence  called 
together  from  fifty  to  a  hundred  thousand  comrades  to  greet 
"Uncle  Billy,"  and  rend  the  heavens  with  the  chorus  of  "March- 
ing through  Georgia."  His  versatile  genius  met  instantly  and  in- 
stinctively the  exacting  requirements  of  an  impromptu  address 
before  a  miscellaneous  audience.  He  possessed  beyond  most  men 
the  quick  sympathy  with  the  occasion,  the  seriousness  and  humor, 


MEMORIAL  OF  GENERAL  SHERMAN  141 

the  fervor  and  story,  the  crisp  argument  and  delicacy  of  touch, 
which  make  the  successful  after-dinner  speech.  He  was  the  most 
charmingly  unconscious  of  conversationalists.  In  his  effacement 
of  himself  and  cordial  recognition  of  others,  picturesque  narra- 
tive of  adventure  and  keen  analysis  of  character,  dry  humor  and 
hot  defense  or  eulogy  of  a  friend,  his  talk  was  both  a  panorama 
and  a  play.  He  was  always  a  boy,  with  a  boy's  love  of  fun,  keen 
interest  in  current  events,  and  transparent  honesty  of  thought 
and  expression.  He  loved  the  theater ;  and  the  stage,  feeling  the 
presence  of  a  discriminating  but  admiring  friend,  was  at  its  best 
when  General  Sherman  was  in  the  audience. 

He  was  delightfully  happy  in  the  applause  and  praise  of  his 
countrymen  and  countrywomen.  He  felt  that  it  came  from  their 
hearts,  as  it  went  to  his.  Through  his  course  as  a  cadet  at  West 
Point  and  his  career  as  a  young  officer  he  revealed  his  innermost 
soul  in  frequent  correspondence  with  the  daughter  of  his  adopted 
father,  who  became  afterward  his  wife,  and  whose  wisdom,  devo- 
tion, and  tenderness  made  his  home  his  haven  and  his  heaven.  No 
impure  thought  ever  occupied  his  mind  or  unclean  word  passed 
his  lips.  There  was  something  so  delicate  and  deferential  in  his 
treatment  of  women,  the  compliment  was  so  sincere  both  in  man- 
ner and  speech,  that  the  knightly  courtesy  of  Bayard  had  in  him 
the  added  charm  of  a  recognition  of  woman's  equal  mind  and 
judgment. 

He  lived  in  and  with  the  public.  There  was  something  in 
the  honesty  and  clear  purpose  of  crowds  which  was  in  harmony 
with  his  ready  sympathy  and  unreserved  expression  and  action 
on  every  question.  He  delighted  in  large  cities,  and  especially 
in  New  York.  The  mighty  and  yet  orderly  movements  of  great 
populations  were  in  harmony  with  his  constant  contemplation  of 
grand  campaigns.  His  penetrating  and  sensitive  mind  found  rest 
and  recreation  in  the  limitless  varieties  of  metropolitan  life.  He 
so  quickly  caught  the  step  of  every  assemblage,  that  he  was  equal- 
ly at  home  among  scientists  and  Sunday-school  teachers'  alumni 
associations  and  national  societies,  club  festivities,  chamber  of 
commerce  celebrations,  and  religious  conventions.  He  never  hesi- 
tated to  respond  on  any  and  all  of  these  occasions  to  a  call  for  a 
speech,  and  always  struck  a  chord  which  was  so  in  unison  with 
the  thought  of  his  audience  as  to  leave  a  lasting  impression.  Af- 
ter the  most  serious  and  important  of  consultations  or  meetings, 


142  ORATIONS   AND   MEMORIAL   ADDRESSES 

the  small  hours  of  the  night  would  often  find  him  the  honored 
guest,  a  boon  companion  among  bohemians,  or  old  comrades; 
but  in  all  the  freedom  of  story  and  repartee,  of  humor  or  recita- 
tion, neither  he  nor  they  ever  for  an  instant  forgot  that  they 
were  in  the  presence  of  General  Sherman. 

He  was  entirely  free  from  the  intense  and  absorbing  passion 
for  wealth  which  characterizes  our  times.  He  knew  little  of  and 
cared  less  for  the  process  of  money-getting.  The  one  place  in  the 
country  where  fortunes  were  never  estimated  was  his  house,  and 
his  was  the  only  presence  where  riches,  their  acquirement,  and 
their  uses  were  never  discussed.  He  was  satisfied  with  his  well- 
earned  pay  from  the  Government,  and  did  not  envy  those  who 
possessed  fortunes.  In  his  simple  tastes  and  childlike  simplicity, 
as  he  lived  and  moved  in  the  midst  of  the  gigantic  combinations 
and  individual  efforts  to  secure  a  large  share  of  stocks  and  bonds 
and  lands,  he  stood  to  the  financial  expansions  and  revulsions  of 
the  day  as  did  the  Vicar  of  Wakefield  to  the  fashionable  society 
of  his  period. 

This  soldier,  citizen,  and  patriot,  this  model  husband,  father, 
and  friend,  held  a  place  in  every  heart,  and  a  seat  by  every  fire- 
side in  the  land.  His  death  carried  a  sense  of  personal  bereave- 
ment to  every  household,  and  plunged  the  country  in  mourning. 
The  imposing  catafalque  has  attracted  the  curiosity  of  thousands 
as  it  has  borne  to  the  tomb  eminent  citizen  or  soldier,  but  the  sim- 
ple caisson  rumbling  over  the  pavement,  and  carrying  General 
Sherman  to  the  side  of  his  beloved  wife  and  adored  boy  in  the 
cemetery,  drew  tears  from  millions.  His  name  and  his  fame,  his 
life  and  his  deeds,  are  among  the  choicest  gifts  of  God  to  this 
richly  endowed  Republic,  and  a  precious  legacy  for  the  example 
and  inspiration  of  coming  generations. 


REUNION  OF  ARMY  OF  THE  POTOMAC 


ORATION  AT  THE  REUNION   OF  THE  ARMY  OF  THE   POTOMAC  AT 
SARATOGA,  NEW  YORK,  JUNE  22,   1 887. 

Soldiers  of  the  Army  of  the  Potomac  :  Last  summer  I 
stood  upon  the  White  Hill  at  Prague,  in  Bohemia,  where  the 
Thirty  Years'  War  began  and  ended.  There  is  no  more  sug- 
gestive spot  in  Europe.  It  recalled  a  picture  of  the  horrors  and 
desolation  of  war  unequaled  in  history.  Across  the  vision  moved 
the  majestic  figures  of  Gustavus  Adolphus  and  Wallenstein,  of 
Turenne  and  Tilly,  and  of  Cardinal  Richelieu.  The  contest  be- 
gan when  the  Continent  was  dominated  by  the  German  Empire, 
and  ended  with  the  magnificent  creation  of  Charles  the  Fifth 
broken  into  numberless  petty  principalities.  Religious  zeal  sup- 
ported the  combatants  on  both  sides.  The  results  were  gains  in 
toleration  of  creeds,  but  the  losses  in  power  and  prestige  and  in 
devastated  cities  and  countries  were  incalculable.  I  was  struck 
with  the  parallel  it  offered  with  our  Civil  War.  The  separation 
of  the  German  people  into  little  states,  each  with  its  court,  its 
army,  and  its  jealousies,  made  Germany  the  prey  of  conquerors 
for  two  hundred  years.  Liberty  was  crushed,  and  the  public 
burdens  were  intolerable.  Each  new  invader  found  allies  among 
the  contending  kingdoms  and  duchies,  and  internal  dissensions 
made  national  unity  and  strength  impossible.  It  was  not  until 
after  two  centuries  of  suffering  and  humiliation  that  the  genius  of 
Bismarck  consolidated  the  German  people  into  an  Empire.  In- 
stantly they  assumed  their  proper  place,  and  became  the  strongest 
and  most  hopeful  of  European  powers. 

The  War  of  the  Rebellion  began  properly  with  the  battle  of 
Bull  Run ;  it  ended,  within  a  short  distance  of  the  same  place,  at 
Appomattox.  Along  seven  thousand  miles  of  country  battles 
were  fought  and  armies  maneuvered,  but  the  transcendent  con- 
flicts were  always  in  Virginia.  The  Army  of  the  Potomac  and 
the  army  of  Lee  were  the  main  combatants,  for  whom  other 
armies,  in  their  own  gallant  and  brilliant  way,  were  creating  di- 
versions, fighting  glorious  battles,  and  drawing  off  the  strength 

143 


144  ORATIONS   AND   MEMORIAL   ADDRESSES 

of  the  adversary.  Like  the  contest  of  the  seventeenth  century, 
ours  was  both  a  civil  and  religious  war.  Three  generations  of 
the  people  of  eleven  States  had  been  taught  by  the  ablest  and  most 
logical  statesmen  of  their  time  that,  as  a  matter  of  the  highest 
political  economy,  the  laborer  should  be  enslaved.  No  other  doc- 
trine was  permitted  to  reach  the  masses,  and  they  became  un- 
animous in  this  belief.  The  Church  threw  around  this  opinion 
its  sacred  benediction,  and  doctors  of  divinity  and  ambitious 
politicians  vied  with  each  other  in  finding  excuses  for  slavery, 
the  one  by  distorted  interpretations  of  the  Scriptures,  the  other 
by  forced  renderings  of  the  Constitution.  In  the  North  preacher 
and  publicist  inveighed  against  it  as  the  most  frightful  curse  to 
the  State  and  a  crime  against  God.  But  the  country  came  out 
of  the  conflict,  not  like  the  old  German  Empire  from  the  Thirty 
Years'  War,  a  confederation  of  independent  and  warring  states, 
but  a  mighty  nation.  We  believed  from  the  start  in  unity  and 
nationality,  and  upon  them  staked  our  all.  We  escaped  that  ter- 
rible experience  of  two  hundred  years  by  which  Germany  learned 
her  lesson,  and  the  American  Bismarck  was  the  American  people. 
In  the  Army  of  the  Potomac  the  State  of  New  York  has  the 
deepest  and  most  tender  interest.  This  commonwealth  contrib- 
uted more  men  to  its  ranks  than  they  ever  mustered  at  any  one 
time.  The  grand  total  of  the  mighty  host  enlisted  from  this  State 
under  its  banners  was  four  hundred  and  eighty-eight  thousand, 
and  from  every  one  of  your  battle-fields  the  cords  of  grief  are 
stretched  to  all  the  cities,  villages,  and  hamlets  within  our  bor- 
ders. It  is,  therefore,  eminently  fit  that  you  should  frequently 
honor  us  with  your  reunions,  and  pre-eminently  appropriate  that 
a  commemoration  should  be  held  upon  this  spot.  The  battle  of 
Saratoga  is  one  of  the  landmarks  of  liberty.  A  great  critic  has 
placed  it  among  the  most  important  of  the  fifteen  decisive  con- 
flicts of  history.  The  patriot  army  was  in  desperate  straits,  and 
the  Continental  treasury  bankrupt  and  without  credit.  The  Brit- 
ish Cabinet  had  ordered  that  Burgoyne  should  march  down  from 
the  north  to  meet  Sir  Henry  Clinton  coming  up  the  Hudson,  and 
the  young  confederacy  thus  cut  in  twain  could  be  easily  con- 
quered. Washington  was  as  thoroughly  alive  to  the  perils  of  the 
situation  as  the  English  generals  were  to  its  possibilities.  The 
hopes  and  fears  of  the  young  Republic  were  concentrated  on  the 
army  facing  Burgoyne  at  Saratoga.    The  battle  closed,  not  only 


REUNION  OF  ARMY  OF  POTOMAC  145 

with  the  defeat  but  the  capture  of  the  entire  British  army,  with 
all  its  armament  and  stores.  The  victory  breathed  the  breath  of 
life  into  American  credit,  and  opened  the  sources  of  national  reve- 
nue. It  inspired  the  wavering  and  gave  strength  to  the  weak. 
It  furnished  the  means  to  that  hero  and  patriot  of  two  continents, 
the  Marquis  de  Lafayette,  by  which  he  brought  about  the  French 
alliance.  "Now  is  the  time  and  here  is  the  place  for  every  enemy 
of  England  to  strike  a  mortal  blow,"  said  old  Frederick  the 
Great,  of  Prussia,  when  he  heard  of  Saratoga,  and  the  govern- 
ments of  the  world  received  the  United  States  of  America  into 
the  family  of  nations. 

But  it  is  not  to  celebrate  the  victories  and  the  virtues  of  the 
heroes  of  the  Revolution  that  we  are  met  here  to-day.  It  is  for 
old  soldiers  once  more  to  touch  elbows,  for  the  cordial  com- 
munion of  comrades,  for  the  revival  of  sacred  reminiscences,  and 
the  broader  purpose  of  keeping  coming  generations  informed  for 
what  you  fought  and  what  you  won.  Vapid  sentimentalists  and 
timid  souls  deprecate  these  annual  reunions,  fearing  they  may 
arouse  old  strifes  and  sectional  animosities;  but  a  war  in  which 
five  hundred  thousand  men  were  killed  and  two  millions  were 
wounded,  in  which  States  were  devastated  and  money  spent  equal 
to  twice  England's  gigantic  debt,  has  a  meaning,  a  lesson,  and  re- 
sults which  are  to  the  people  of  this  Republic  a  liberal  education, 
and  the  highest  chairs  in  this  university  belong  to  you. 

We  cheerfully  admit  that  the  Confederate  equally  with  the 
Federal  soldier  believed  he  was  fighting  for  the  right,  and  main- 
tained his  faith  with  a  valor  which  fully  sustained  the  reputation 
of  Americans  for  courage  and  constancy;  and  yet,  one  side  or 
the  other  was  wrong.  It  was  slavery  and  disunion,  or  freedom 
and  union,  and  one  must  not  only  yield,  but  die.  The  God  of 
Battles  decided  for  Liberty  and  Nationality,  and  no  surviving 
soldier  who  fought  in  either  army  to-day  doubts  the  righteousness 
of  that  verdict.  The  best  and  bravest  thinkers  of  the  South  glad- 
ly proclaim  that  the  superb  development  which  has  been  the  out- 
growth of  their  defeat  is  worth  all  its  losses,  its  sacrifices,  its  hum- 
iliations. As  torrents  of  living  waters  flowed  from  the  rock  smit- 
ten by  Moses  in  the  desert,  so  from  the  touch  of  liberty  has  come 
an  industrial  revolution  full  of  prosperity  and  promise.  The  wastes 
and  wildernesses  of  feudal  baronies  are  inviting  emigration  to 
a  new  agriculture  and  harvests  of  wealth,  and  the  hills  and  moun- 
Vol.  1—10 


146  ORATIONS   AND   MEMORIAL  ADDRESSES 

tains  are  yielding  their  treasures  to  the  founding  and  building 
of  new  Birminghams  and  Sheffields.  The  marvelous  recupera- 
tion of  the  whole  country  in  the  past  twenty  years,  and  our  gi- 
gantic strides  in  material  progress,  have  almost  obliterated  from 
memory  the  fact  that  these  results  are  solely  due  to  the  victories 
won  by  the  armies  of  the  Union.  Let  the  youth  of  all  sections 
grow  up  from  generation  to  generation  taught  the  lesson  and 
imbued  with  the  sentiment  that  this  Republic  is  not  a  confederacy, 
of  independent  States,  but  a  Nation,  with  the  right  and  power 
to  use  the  last  dollar  and  enlist  the  last  man  to  maintain  the  au- 
thority of  the  Constitution  and  the  supremacy  of  the  flag.  Who- 
ever is  offended  by  this  is  not  a  loyal  citizen  and  should  "recon- 
struct" or  emigrate.  Englishmen  fought  against  Englishmen  in 
the  Revolutionary  War,  and  now,  to  the  modern  and  enlightened 
Briton,  the  Fourth  of  July  is  as  triumphant  a  day  as  it  is  for  us. 
It  won  for  us  independence,  and  for  him  larger  liberties  and  bet- 
ter government.  I  say  it  reverently,  the  converted  sinner  kneels  at 
the  altar  and  confesses  before  God  and  the  world  the  error  of 
his  ways,  or  the  heresy  of  his  opinions,  and  when  forgiven  and 
absolved,  instead  of  being  offended  at  the  repeated  celebrations 
of  the  event,  he  glories  in  the  victory,  and  calls  upon  comrades 
and  companions  to  share  his  happiness.  The  results  of  the  Civil 
War  were  embodied  in  the  Constitution  and  embedded  in  the  laws 
of  the  land,  and  loyal  minds  and  loyal  hearts,  no  matter  on  which 
side  they  fought,  hold  that  the  observance  and  enforcement  of 
such  laws  in  letter  and  in  spirit  are  the  tests  of  true  citizenship 
and  honest  patriotism. 

We  are  surfeited  in  these  times  with  careful  calculations  and 
rigid  estimates  of  the  value  of  the  services  of  the  men  who  fought 
this  war.  In  popular  discussions  it  is  widely  taught  that  "pen- 
sioner" is  a  term  of  reproach  instead  of  honorable  recognition  of 
the  country's  gratitude.  I  remember,  when  a  boy,  that  the  most 
distinguished  guests  at  all  patriotic  celebrations  were  the  vener- 
able men  whose  names  were  borne  on  the  pension-roll  of  the  army. 
It  was  a  decoration,  and  carried  with  it  the  distinction  of  the  med- 
al and  ribbon  of  the  Legion  of  Honor.  Fraud  upon  the  pension 
fund  is  a  capital  crime  and  merits  the  severest  punishment,  but  the 
principles  upon  which  it  is  founded,  and  the  purity  with  which  it  is 
administered,  reflect  credit  alike  upon  the  giver  and  the  recipients. 
The  men  who  at  a  compensation  of  thirteen  dollars  a  month  left 


REUNION  OF  ARMY  OF  POTOMAC  147 

behind  them  prospects  for  promotion  in  their  professions,  wealth 
in  their  business,  and  competence  from  their  industries,  and  for 
four  years  marched  under  blazing  suns,  slept  upon  the  ground, 
breathed  the  miasma  of  the  swamps,  were  racked  with  the  fevers 
of  the  jungle,  and  amidst  shot  and  shell  and  saber-thrust  kept  their 
colors  aloft  and  bore  them  to  the  Capital  in  triumph,  secured  for 
the  sixty  millions  of  people  of  this  Republic,  and  their  descend- 
ants, those  unequaled  civil  and  religious  rights  and  business  op- 
portunities which  make  this  land  the  one  country  in  the  world 
where  people  of  all  nationalities  are  seeking  homes,  and  from 
which  no  man  ever  voluntarily  emigrated.  In  i860  the  developed 
and  assessable  property  of  the  United  States  was  valued  at  six- 
teen thousand  millions  of  dollars.  One-half  of  this  enormous 
sum  was  destroyed  by  the  Civil  War,  and  yet  so  prodigious  has 
been  the  growth  of  wealth  under  the  conditions  created  by  the 
national  victory  and  the  settlements  of  reconstruction,  that  in 
this  month  of  June,  1887,  the  estimate  surpasses  the  imperial 
figure  of  sixty  thousand  millions  of  dollars,  and  the  growth  is 
at  the  rate  of  nearly  seven  millions  a  day.  Our  wealth  approxi- 
mates one-half  of  that  of  all  Europe,  and  it  is  an  easy  task  for 
the  statistician  to  aggregate  civilized  governments  with  popula- 
tions of  hundreds  of  millions  of  people  who  are  paupers  in  the 
scale  of  comparisons.  While  in  Europe  with  the  increase  of  popu- 
lation there  has  been  a  decrease,  since  the  surrender  of  Appomat- 
tox, in  the  amount  for  each  individual,  here  during  the  same  per- 
iod the  increase  for  every  inhabitant  has  been  fifty  per  cent.  If 
it  be  true  that  the  transmittable  property  of  the  world  accumu- 
lated during  the  last  twenty-five  years  equals  all  the  gains  from 
the  birth  of  Christ  to  the  beginning  of  the  present  century,  then 
much  of  it  has  been  made  by  this  favored  nation,  which  for  six- 
teen hundred  years  had  no  existence,  and  was  not  an  appreciable 
factor  in  the  divisible  property  of  the  earth  at  the  close  of  the 
Christian  calculation.  These  unparallelel  results  can  be  protected 
and  continued  only  by  the  spirit  represented  by  your  sacrifices 
and  inspiring  your  victories — the  spirit  of  patriotism.  This  is 
a  republic,  and  neither  Mammon  nor  Anarchy  shall  be  king.  The 
American  asks  only  for  a  fair  field  and  an  equal  chance.  He  be- 
lieves that  every  man  is  entitled  for  himself  and  his  children  to 
the  full  enjoyment  of  all  he  honestly  earns ;  but  he  will  seek  and 
find  the  means  for  eradicating  conditions  which  hopelessly  handi- 


148  ORATIONS   AND   MEMORIAL   ADDRESSES 

cap  him  from  the  start.  In  this  contest  he  does  not  want  the  as- 
sistance of  the  Red  Flag,  and  he  regards  with  equal  hostility  those 
who  march  under  that  banner  and  those  who  furnish  argument 
and  excuse  for  its  existence.  The  men  who  in  1880  "cornered" 
our  wheat  product,  and  so  artificially  raised  the  price  all  over  the 
world  that  governments  and  peoples  pushed  railroads  through 
Indian  plains  to  the  Himalayas,  across  Russian  steppes  to  the 
Arctic  zone,  and  over  Australian  deserts  to  fertile  valleys,  in 
search  of  food,  created  for  us  competitions  which  lost  us  the  for- 
eign markets  and  partially  paralyzed  our  agricultural  prosperity. 
They  were  public  enemies.  In  good  times  and  easy  credit  a  small 
margin  represents  millions  of  capital,  and  reckless  speculators 
control  first  one  and  then  another  of  the  necessaries  of  life,  rais- 
ing the  cost  of  living  beyond  the  profits  of  production,  throwing 
thousands  of  industrious  men  out  of  employment,  and  thwarting 
and  ruining  legitimate  trades  and  business  capital.  They  exas- 
perate the  victims  and  incite  combinations  and  dangers  which 
threaten  the  whole  property  of  the  country,  the  peace  of  com- 
munities, and  the  lives  of  millions  of  people.  If  public  senti- 
ment cannot  reach  these  evils,  our  Constitutions  are  elastic 
enough,  our  Legislatures  wise  enough,  and  our  Courts  strong 
enough,  to  eradicate  them  by  lawful  means.  Traffic  in  the  food 
of  the  people  must  be  free.  The  corporation  is  the  creature  of 
the  State,  its  powers  limited  by  the  conditions  of  its  existence, 
its  methods  subject  to  public  supervision,  and  its  life  dependent 
upon  its  creator.  It  is  the  only  medium  through  which  many  of 
the  great  enterprises  of  our  civilization  can  be  carried  on.  But 
the  sun  of  publicity  can  send  no  ray  into  the  labyrinths  of  those 
gigantic  combinations  which  are  created  by  neither  law  nor  cus- 
tom nor  necessity,  and  whose  mysterious  movements  are  at  once 
the  peril  and  the  puzzle  of  the  investor,  and  the  destructive  traps 
for  enterprise  and  ambition. 

Thirty  years  ago  Macaulay  wrote  a  letter  to  an  eminent  citi- 
zen of  this  State  which  carries  to  the  reader  the  shock  of  an  elec- 
tric battery.  In  it  he  declares  that  our  institutions  are  not  strong 
enough  to  stand  the  strain  of  crowded  populations  and  social  dis- 
tress, and  that  our  public  lands  furnish  the  only  escape  from  an- 
archy. With  the  opening  of  the  next  century,  thirteen  years 
hence,  they  will  all  be  occupied,  and  at  the  first  industrial  distur- 
bance which  throws  large  masses  of  men  out  of  employment  we 


REUNION  OF  ARMY  OF  POTOMAC  149 

must  meet  the  prediction  of  the  famous  historian.  If  Macaulay 
had  witnessed  the  sublime  response  of  the  people  to  President 
Lincoln's  call  for  troops  to  suppress  rebellion  and  save  the  Union, 
it  would  have  cleared  his  vision  and  modified  his  judgment.  Nev- 
ertheless, the  exhaustion  of  the  public  domain  and  the  disappear- 
ance forever  of  the  unbought  homestead,  present  part  of  Macau- 
lay's  problem.  The  ranks  of  anarchy  and  riot  number  no  Am- 
ericans. The  leaders  boldly  proclaim  that  they  come  here,  not 
to  enjoy  the  blessings  of  our  liberty  and  to  sustain  our  institu- 
tions, but  to  destroy  our  Government  and  dethrone  our  laws,  to 
cut  our  throats  and  divide  our  property.  Dissatisfied  labor  fur- 
nishes the  opportunity  to  preach  their  doctrines  and  mobs  to  try 
their  tactics.  Their  recruiting  officers  are  active  in  every  city 
in  Europe,  and  for  once  despotic  governments  give  them  accord 
and  assistance,  in  securing  and  shipping  to  America  the  most 
dangerous  elements  of  their  populations.  The  emigrants  arriv- 
ing this  year  will  outnumber  the  people  of  several  States,  and  of 
every  city  in  the  country  but  three,  and  if  some  mighty  power 
should  instantly  depopulate  Maine  or  Connecticut  or  Nebraska, 
or  Buffalo,  Cleveland,  Detroit,  and  New  Haven  combined,  with 
their  culture,  refinement,  and  varied  professional,  mechanical, 
and  industrial  excellence  and  enlightened  government,  and  sud- 
denly substitute  these  people,  we  could  quickly  estimate  the  char- 
acter and  value  of  this  contribution  to  our  institutions  and  wealth. 
The  emigrants  of  the  past  have  been  of  incalculable  benefit  to  a 
country  which  needed  settlers  for  its  lands,  and  skilled  and  un- 
skilled labor  for  its  towns,  and  among  them  have  been  men  who 
have  filled  and  adorned  the  highest  positions  of  power  and  trust. 
The  officers  of  the  Government  report  that  there  is  a  falling-off 
of  over  seventy  per  cent,  of  farmers,  mechanics,  and  trained 
workers,  and  their  places  are  occupied  by  elements  which  must 
drift  into  and  demoralize  labor  centers  already  overstocked  and 
congested,  or  fill  the  highways  and  poorhouses.  We  do  not  wish 
to  prohibit  emigration,  but  our  laws  should  be  rigidly  revised  so 
that  we  may  at  least  have  some  voice  in  the  selection  of  our 
guests.  We  cannot  afford  to  become  the  dumping-ground  of  the 
world  for  its  vicious  or  ignorant  or  worthless  or  diseased.  We 
will  welcome,  as  always,  all  patriots  fleeing  from  oppression,  all 
who  will  contribute  to  the  strength  of  our  Government  and  the 
development  of  our  resources,  and  we  will  freely  grant  to  all  who 


150  ORATIONS  AND  MEMORIAL  ADDRESSES 

become  citizens  equal  rights  and  privileges  under  the  laws  and 
in  making  them,  with  the  soldiers  who  saved  the  Republic,  but 
no  more.  There  is  room  in  this  country  for  only  one  flag,  and 
"Old  Glory"  must  head  the  procession  or  it  cannot  march. 

A  nation  of  the  power  and  position  of  the  United  States 
should  have  a  navy  strong  enough  to  protect  its  coasts  and  har- 
bors, to  maintain  its  honor  and  enforce  respect  for  its  flag,  and 
an  army  worthy  of  the  name.  Wars  have  not  ceased.  With  our 
reviving  commerce  and  growing  interests  all  over  the  world,  we 
may  at  any  time  be  embroiled  in  a  conflict  with  some  European 
or  South  American  government.  That  Turkey  or  Chili  could 
sweep  our  navy  from  the  seas  in  a  month,  that  there  is  no  gun  or 
armament  in  any  of  our  ports  which  could  prevent  an  ironclad 
from  entering  the  harbor  and  destroying  our  chief  cities  or  levy- 
ing hundreds  of  millions  of  tribute,  is  not  gratifying  to  our  sense, 
our  security,  or  our  pride.  That  we  would  be  buffeted  and  humi- 
liated for  two  years  before  we  would  be  able  to  protect  ourselves 
or  retaliate,  illustrates  the  superlative  idiocy  of  our  blind  con- 
fidence in  our  resources.  The  governments  of  Europe,  armed  to 
the  teeth,  are  confronting  each  other,  and  an  accident  or  a  death 
may  precipitate  the  most  gigantic  conflict  of  modern  times;  but 
they  will  not  always  be  thus  engaged.  An  army  of  fifty  thous- 
and men  is  none  too  large  to  man  our  forts  and  frontiers,  and 
form  the  nucleus  and  the  school  for  our  volunteers.  For  while 
the  citizen  soldiers  will  always  be  our  reliance  in  war  or  rebel- 
lion, it  takes  many  months  to  arm,  equip,  and  drill  them  for  ef- 
fective service. 

We  are  in  the  enjoyment  of  profound  domestic  tranquillity, 
but  the  safety  of  every  man  in  his  home,  his  family,  his  children, 
and  his  property  is  only  in  the  supremacy  of  the  laws.  Among 
sixty  millions  of  people,  and  soon  to  be  a  hundred  millions,  spread 
over  a  continent,  there  is  liable  to  arise  at  any  time  insurrection 
or  riots  from  economic  or  political  or  religious  or  social  causes 
beyond  the  power  of  local  or  state  authorities  to  meet.  There 
has  been  a  Mormon  rebellion;  others  of  like  character  are  pos- 
sible. A  temperance  murder  may  provoke  that  most  frightful 
form  of  tyranny,  mob  rule.  Had  the  police  been  routed  on  the 
night  of  the  anarchists'  assault  at  Chicago,  it  would  have  taken 
an  army  to  save  the  unprotected  city  from  burning  and  pillage 
and  the  unutterable  horrors  of  the  sack.    A  less  peace-loving  or 


REUNION  OF  ARMY  OF  POTOMAC  151 

self -poised  man  than  Samuel  J.  Tilden  would  have  stirred  politi- 
cal passions,  inflamed  to  the  fighting  point,  into  bloody  revolt. 
The  demagogue  who  pretends  to  fear  that  the  liberties  of  sixty 
millions  of  people  may  be  endangered  by  an  army  of  fifty  or  a 
hundred  thousand  men,  finds  instead  of  the  credulity  which  ac- 
cepts his  opinions,  only  contempt  for  himself.  The  American 
Caesar  is  an  airy  phantasm  of  a  diseased  imagination.  In  all  or- 
dinary, and  most  of  the  extraordinary,  cases  of  local  trouble, 
the  police  and  the  sheriff  are  equal  to  the  emergency,  but  it  was 
found  in  the  riots  of  1877,  when  States  were  paralyzed  and  their 
officers  helpless,  that  in  the  popular  mind  the  supreme  sovereignty 
of  the  American  people  was  represented  by  the  uniform  of  the 
regular  army,  and  through  it  sixty  millions  of  citizens  demanded 
the  cessation  of  hostilities,  the  restoration  of  law  and  order,  and 
the  vindication  of  rights  by  the  courts.  It  is  the  glory  of  the 
army  and  the  pride  of  the  nation,  that  since  the  formation  of  the 
Government  no  regiment  or  company  of  United  States  soldiers 
has  ever  joined  the  enemy,  sympathized  with  insurrection,  or 
sided  with  rebellion.  That  an  efficient,  thoroughly  drilled,  and 
equipped  body  of  citizen  soldiers  should  exist  in  every  State — 
of  which  no  better  example  exists  than  the  National  Guard  of 
New  York — is  too  self-evident  for  discussion;  it  keeps  alive  the 
martial  spirit  of  patriotism  and  principle  of  voluntary  service. 
But  I  have  no  fears  of  the  fulfilment  of  Macaulay's  direful  fore- 
bodings. I  have  unlimited  faith  in  the  absorbent  properties  of 
American  communities,  and  the  solvent  powers  of  American  lib- 
erty. Let  us  take  care  of  the  Mosts,  the  Spies,  and  the 
Schwabs;  and  the  press,  the  platform,  the  school,  the  church, 
and  the  English  language,  will  make  honest  citizens  of  their  fol- 
lowers and  their  descendants.  Every  man  who  leads  a  temperate 
and  industrious  life,  and  organizes  himself  into  an  anti-poverty 
society  of  one,  has  secured  his  independence  and  individual 
prosperity,  and  become  a  champion  of  order  and  a  bulwark  of 
law. 

So  long  as  the  veterans  of  the  Civil  War  can  carry  muskets 
and  rally  at  command,  the  nation  has  a  most  effective  army. 
But  age,  disease,  and  death  are  fast  thinning  their  ranks.  Their 
active  service  will  soon  be  only  glorious  memories  for  the  inspira- 
tion of  others.  Their  story  will  be  the  recruiting  sergeant  of 
coming  generations.    Each  of  the  great  armies  had  its  distinguish- 


152  ORATIONS   AND   MEMORIAL   ADDRESSES 

ing  merit,  but  in  the  achievements  and  in  the  records  of  the  West- 
ern forces,  following  the  precedent  of  previous  wars,  are  largely 
represented  the  genius  and  personality  of  great  commanders.  To 
the  Army  of  the  Potomac  belongs  the  unique  distinction  of  being 
its  own  hero.  It  fought  more  battles. and  lost  more  in  killed  and 
wounded  than  all  the  others ;  it  shed  its  blood  like  water  to  teach 
incompetent  officers  the  art  of  war,  and  political  tacticians  the 
folly  of  their  plans;  but  it  was  always  the  same  invincible  and 
undismayed  Army  of  the  Potomac.  Loyal  ever  to  its  mission 
and  to  discipline,  the  only  sound  it  gave  in  protest  of  the  murder- 
ous folly  of  cabinets  and  generals  was  the  crackling  of  the  bones 
as  cannon-balls  ploughed  through  its  decimated  ranks. 

The  verdict  of  history  is  already  made  up  as  to  the  value  of 
its  services,  its  sacrifices,  and  its  victories,  but  perhaps  not  yet 
upon  its  commanders.  All  of  them  were  brave  soldiers,  all  of 
them  were  unequaled  at  the  head  of  a  division  or  a  corps ;  but  to 
make  the  combinations  to  overcome  the  Titanic  forces  of  the  un- 
precedented obstacles  presented  by  nature,  a  hostile  population, 
and  a  foe  of  equal  power  and  prowess  on  the  defensive  line,  was 
not  their  talent.  From  intermediate  discussions  we  rise  to  the 
contemplation  of  two  grand  facts,  standing  like  monuments  at 
the  beginning  and  close  of  its  career:  that  it  owed  its  existence 
to  the  masterly  organizing  abilities  of  McClellan,  and  ended  the 
war  under  the  superb  generalship  of  Grant.  As  we  recall  the 
memory  of  the  dead,  the  spirits  of  all  the  warrior  heroes  of  the 
past  come  trooping  before  us.  There  are  Alexander  and  Caesar, 
Gustavus  and  the  great  Frederick,  Napoleon  and  his  marshals, 
Wellington  and  his  generals,  Washington  and  his  compatriots; 
and  they  have  enrolled  in  their  company  and  encircled  with  their 
praise,  Hancock  and  Hooker,  Sumner  and  Sedgwick,  Meade  and 
Warren,  Burnside  and  Reynolds,  Kearny,  Wadsworth,  Custer, 
and  Kilpatrick. 

A  good  soldier  does  full  honor  to  his  adversary.  Also  Am- 
ericans, though  on  the  wrong  side,  no  more  formidable  force  of 
equal  numbers  ever  marched  or  fought  than  the  Army  of  North- 
ern Virginia;  and  it  had  the  rare  fortune  of  being  always  under 
the  command  of  one  of  the  most  creative  and  accomplished  mili- 
tary minds  of  his  time — General  Lee.  To  conquer  and  capture 
such  an  army  and  captain,  the  Army  of  the  Potomac  must  over- 
come what  the  greatest  of  tacticians  has  said  was  invincible;  an 


REUNION  OF  ARMY  OF  POTOMAC  153 

armed  enemy  in  his  own  country,  with  the  whole  population  ven- 
omously hostile,  acting  as  spies,  furnishing  information,  remov- 
ing supplies,  preparing  ambuscades,  and  misleading  the  invader; 
and  it  did  accomplish  this  military  miracle.  It  was  hard  and  try- 
ing to  be  marched  and  countermarched  for  naught ;  to  be  separ- 
ated and  paralyzed  at  the  moment  when  a  supreme  effort  meant 
victory ;  to  be  hurled  against  impassable  defenses,  and  then  waste 
months  in  repairing  the  mistake ;  but  in  God's  mysterious  provi- 
dence it  was  the  only  means  by  which  the  end  of  the  war  should 
be  a  final  settlement.  Had  the  conflict  closed  by  the  capture  of 
Richmond  during  the  first  or  second,  or  even  the  third  year  it 
would  have  left  an  armed,  defiant,  and  unconverted  adversary, 
utilizing  peace  as  a  truce  in  which  to  recuperate  for  another  blow, 
when  sure  of  larger  sympathy  and  support  in  the  North.  It  re- 
quired complete  and  utter  exhaustion,  and  the  humiliation  of  to- 
tal and  hopeless  defeat,  that,  in  absolute  despair  of  revenge,  re- 
flection might  calmly  reason  through  the  errors  of  the  lost  cause 
to  the  glowing  realization  that  defeat  was  victory,  that  poverty 
would  be  the  source  of  undreamed  wealth,  and  that  the  striking 
of  the  chains  from  the  limbs  of  the  slave  had  unshackled  the  mas- 
ter. It  was  the  answer  to  the  Apostle's  cry,  "Oh,  wretched  man 
that  I  am,  who  shall  deliver  me  from  the  body  of  this  death!" 
And  the  disenthralled  rebel  in  his  rags  began  the  life  of  a  pros- 
perous patriot. 

The  Army  of  the  Potomac  was  composed  of  thinking  bayon- 
ets. Behind  each  musket  was  a  man  who  knew  for  what  he  was 
fighting,  and  intended  when  the  war  was  over  to  return  home  and 
take  up  the  peaceful  implements  of  his  trade  or  profession  where 
he  had  dropped  them.  He  understood  the  plan  of  campaign,  and 
with  unerring  and  terrible  accuracy  sized  up  his  commander. 
The  one  soldier  in  whom  he  never  lost  confidence  was  himself. 
This  army  operated  so  near  the  Capital,  that  congressmen  and 
newspapers  directed  its  movements,  changed  its  officers,  and  criti- 
cised its  failures  to  conquer  upon  lines  blue-penciled  on  Wash- 
ington maps.  It  suffered  for  four  years  under  unparalleled  abuse, 
and  was  encouraged  by  little  praise,  but  never  murmured.  It 
saw  all  its  corps  and  division  commanders  sign  a  petition  to  the 
President  to  remove  its  General,  and  then  despairingly  but  heroic- 
ally marched  to  certain  disaster  at  his  order.  It  saw  its  General 
demand  the  resignation  or  court-martial  of  its  corps  and  division 


154  ORATIONS   AND   MEMORIAL   ADDRESSES 

officers,  and  yet,  undemoralized  and  undismayed,  it  charged  un- 
der his  successor  in  a  chaos  of  conflicting  commands. 

"On  to  Richmond !"  came  the  unthinking  cry  from  every  city, 
village,  and  cross-roads  in  the  North;  "On  to  Richmond!"  shout- 
ed grave  senators  and  impetuous  congressmen;  "On  to  Rich- 
mond !"  ordered  the  Cabinet,  no  longer  able  to  resist  the  popular 
demand,  and  the  raw  and  untrained  recruits  were  hurled  from 
their  unformed  organizations  and  driven  back  to  Washington. 
Then,  with  discipline  and  drill,  out  of  chaos  came  order ;  the  self- 
asserting  volunteer  had  become  an  obedient  soldier,  the  mass  had 
been  molded  into  a  complex  and  magnificent  machine,  and  it  was 
the  "Army  of  the  Potomac/'  Overcoming  untold  difficulties, 
fighting  with  superb  courage,  it  comes  in  sight  of  the  spires  of 
Richmond,  and  then,  unable  to  succeed,  because  McDowell  and 
his  corps  of  thirty-four  thousand  are  held  back,  it  renews  each 
morning  and  carries  on  every  night  in  retreat  the  seven  days' 
battle  for  existence,  and,  brought  to  bay  at  Malvern  Hill,  asserts 
its  undaunted  spirit  in  hard-won  victory.  It  follows  Pope,  and 
marches,  and  falls  back,  pursues  enemies  who  are  not  before  it, 
and  finds  foes  for  which  it  is  unprepared,  and  fights,  and  is  beat- 
en, under  orders  so  contradictory  and  counsels  so  divided,  that 
an  army  of  European  veterans  would  have  disbanded.  As  soon 
as  it  recognized  a  general  in  whom  it  has  confidence,  the  strag- 
glers come  from  the  bush  and  the  wounded  from  the  hospitals ; 
regiments,  brigades,  divisions,  and  corps  reform,  and  at  Antie- 
tam  it  is  invincible  and  irresistible.  Every  man  in  the  ranks 
knows  that  the  fortified  heights  of  Fredericksburg  are  impreg- 
nable ;  that  the  forlorn-hope  charges  not  into  the  imminent  deadly 
breach,  but  into  a  death-trap,  and  yet,  with  unfaltering  step,  this 
grand  army  salutes  its  blind  commander,  and  marches  to  the 
slaughter. 

"Theirs  not  to  reason  why, 
Theirs  not  to  make  reply, 
Theirs  but  to  do  and  die." 

Every  private  was  aware  of  the  follies  of  the  Rappahannock 
campaign.  He  knew  that  the  opportunity  to  inflict  an  irreparable 
blow  upon  the  army  of  Lee  had  been  trifled  away,  and  that  after 
reckless  delays  to  make  the  movement,  which  at  first  would  have 
been  a  surprise,  conceived  by  the  very  genius  of  war,  was  then 


REUNION  OP  ARMY  OF  POTOMAC  155 

mere  midsummer  madness;  and  yet  this  incomparable  army, 
floundering  through  swamps,  lost  in  almost  impenetrable  forests, 
outflanked,  outmaneuvered,  outgeneraled,  decimated,  no  sooner 
felt  the  firm  hand  of  Meade  than  they  destroyed  the  offensive 
and  aggressive  power  of  the  Confederacy  in  the  three  days'  fight- 
ing at  Gettysburg. 

At  last  this  immortal  army  of  Cromwellian  descent,  of  Vik- 
ing ancestry,  and  the  blood  of  Brian  Boru,  had  at  its  head  a  great 
captain  who  had  never  lost  a  battle,  and  whom  President  Lincoln 
had  freed  from  political  meddling  and  the  interference  of  the 
civil  authorities.  Every  morning  for  thirty  days  came  the  orders 
to  storm  the  works  in  front,  and  every  evening  for  thirty  nights 
the  survivors  moved  to  the  command,  "By  the  left  flank,  for- 
ward, march" ;  and  at  the  end  of  that  fateful  month,  with  sixty 
thousand  comrades  dead  or  wounded  in  the  Wilderness,  the  Army 
of  the  Potomac  once  more,  after  four  years,  saw  the  spires  of 
Richmond.  Inflexible  of  purpose,  insensible  to  suffering,  inured 
to  fatigue,  and  reckless  of  danger,  it  rained  blow  on  blow  upon 
its  heroic  but  staggering  foe,  and  the  world  gained  a  new  and 
better  and  freer  and  more  enduring  Republic  than  it  had  ever 
known  in  the  surrender  at  Appomattox. 

When  Lincoln  and  Grant  and  Sherman,  firmly  holding  be- 
hind them  the  vengeful  passions  of  the  Civil  War,  put  out  their 
victorious  arms  to  the  South  and  said,  "We  are  brethren,"  this 
generous  and  patriotic  army  joined  in  the  glad  acclaim  and  wel- 
come with  their  fervent  "Amen."  Twenty-two  years  have  come 
and  gone  since  you  marched  down  Pennsylvania  Avenue  past  the 
people's  representatives,  to  whom  you  and  your  Western  com- 
rades there  committed  the  Government  you  had  saved  and  the 
liberties  you  had  redeemed ;  past  Americans  from  whose  citizen- 
ship you  had  wiped  with  your  blood  the  only  stain,  and  made  it 
the  proudest  of  earthly  titles.  Call  the  roll.  The  names  rever- 
berate from  earth  to  Heaven.  "All  present  or  accounted  for." 
Here  the  living  answer  for  the  dead ;  there  the  spirits  of  the  dead 
answer  for  the  living.  As  God  musters  them  out  on  earth,  He  en- 
rolls them  above;  and  as  the  Republic  marches  down  the  ages, 
accumulating  power  and  splendor  with  each  succeeding  century, 
the  van  will  be  led  by  the  Army  of  the  Potomac. 


STATUE  OF  HORACE  GREELEY 


ORATION  AT  THE  UNVEILING  OF  THE  STATUE  OF  HORACE  GREELEY, 
NEW  YORK,  SEPTEMBER  20,   189O.1 

When  the  Latin  poet  Horace  wrote  that  he  had  reared  for. 
himself  a  monument  more  enduring  than  brass,  he  voiced  the 
career  of  his  namesake  two  thousand  years  after.  We  have 
ceased  to  be  hero-worshipers,  and  the  statue  is  no  longer  the  ex- 
pression of  fame,  but  the  index  finger  pointing  to  the  worth  or 
worthlessness  of  its  subject.  Art  and  the  architect  will  live,  but 
most  of  the  works  inspired  by  public  partiality  or  private  muni- 
ficence will  be  for  the  galleries  of  the  future  like  the  unknown 
worthies  of  Rembrandt  and  Van  Dyck  for  those  of  our  time. 
But  we  unveil  here  the  representation  of  the  form  and  features 
of  a  man  who  won  immortality  by  his  services  to  his  country  and 
to  mankind.  Horace  Greeley  is  our  best  type  of  self-made  men, 
and  of  the  career  possible  under  American  conditions.  He  soars 
far  above  the  popular  ideal,  which  rises  only  to  the  appreciation 
of  the  acquisition  of  money.  He  was  very  poor  in  his  youth,  and 
never  rich,  but  his  poverty  was  of  the  kind  peculiar  to  our  people. 
It  neither  degrades  nor  discourages.  It  accustoms  to  self-sacri- 
fice; it  educates  fertility  of  resource;  it  is  the  spur  of  ambition. 
It  sternly  enforces  the  rule  of  the  survival  of  the  fittest.  It  has 
been  the  parent  of  the  majority  of  the  Presidents  of  the  United 
States  and  of  all  our  leaders  of  parties  and  of  ideas. 

The  son  of  a  New  Hampshire  farmer,  whose  best  exertions 
could  barely  provide  the  simplest  necessaries  of  life  for  his  family, 
educated  mainly  by  his  mother,  and  compelled  while  yet  a  boy  to 
assist  his  parents  by  his  labor  and  wages,  enduring  privation  and 
hardship  that  he  might  send  them  a  larger  share  of  his  earnings, 
his  kindly  and  sympathetic  nature  absorbed  that  knowledge  of 
struggling  humanity  and  cultivated  that  sympathy  with  suffer- 
ing which  furnished  the  main-spring  of  his  future  activity.  Hope 
and  opportunity  are  the  only  capital  of  millions  of  young  men,  to 
whom  the  story  of  Horace  Greeley  is  both  lesson  and  guide.     At 

JIn    Greeley   Square,   by   J.    Q.    A.    Ward    (1830-1910).      A    replica   stands   before    the 
Tribune   Building  in   Printing  House   Square. — Ed. 

156 


STATUE  OF  HORACE  GREELEY  157 

twenty,  with  shambling  gait,  poor  and  badly  fitting  clothes,  a  most 
unpromising  appearance  and  address,  utterly  ignorant  of  the 
world,  without  friends  or  acquaintances,  and  with  only  ten  dol- 
lars in  his  pocket,  he  was  in  New  York  seeking  his  fortune  and 
knocking  vainly  at  the  door  of  every  printing-office  in  the  city 
for  employment.  Forty  years  afterward  the  land  was  full  of 
his  fame  and  achievements.  As  a  printer  he  was  the  best  in  the 
composing-room,  but  he  was  not  satisfied.  Determined  to  be  in- 
dependent and  his  own  master,  he  met  with  failure  in  business, 
but  was  not  discouraged.  He  tried  with  unabated  cheerfulness 
and  undaunted  courage  the  avenues  open  to  his  training  and 
abilities.  Disaster  and  disappointment  in  one  led  him,  not  to 
lie  down  and  give  up,  but  to  return  and  try  another,  until  at  last 
he  found  his  place.  His  great  work  and  invaluable  services 
there  are  the  significance  of  this  ceremonial.  His  penny  daily 
paper  died.  His  high-toned  and  high-priced  weekly  found  no 
support,  but  his  experience  was  education  and  preparation  for  the 
great  work  of  his  life.  His  campaign  paper,  The  Log  Cabin, 
was  both  a  revelation  and  a  revolution  in  partisan  literature.  The 
young  giant  was  now  fitted  for  his  task  and  founded  the  New 
York  Tribune. 

Nothing  is  more  remarkable  in  our  history  as  a  people  than 
the  extraordinary  difference  in  periods  in  the  production  of  great 
men.  It  does  not  meet  the  case  to  say  that  emergencies  bring 
them  forth.  If  the  standard  be  the  names  that  will  survive  and 
be  cherished  by  posterity,  then  the  wealth  of  one  generation  em- 
phasizes the  poverty  of  another.  Washington,  Hamilton,  and  Jef- 
ferson, then  Webster  and  Greeley,  then  Lincoln,  Grant,  and  Sher- 
man, and  in  literature,  Irving,  and  after  an  interval  the  glorious 
generation  of  Longfellow  and  Hawthorne.  Beyond  all  other 
publicists  Daniel  Webster  and  Horace  Greeley  forced  the  issues 
which  saved  the  country  and  gave  them  enduring  places  in  our 
history.  To  Webster  belongs  the  distinction  of  having  converted 
his  countrymen  from  States'  rights  to  nationality;  to  Greeley 
the  enforcement  of  the  freedom  of  the  slaves. 

The  time  between  1840,  when  Horace  Greeley  in  a  large  way 
influenced  public  opinion,  and  1872,  when  he  died,  will  always 
remain  remarkable  from  the  magnitude  of  the  events  with  which 
it  was  crowded.  It  inherited  or  originated  and  settled  questions 
of  vast  importance,  not  only  to  the  United  States  but  to  the 


158  ORATIONS   AND   MEMORIAL  ADDRESSES 

world.  It  was  pre-eminently  the  period  of  revolution  and  re- 
construction. The  men  who  guided  opinion  and  action  required 
and  possessed  creative  genius  and  courage.  During  these  years 
the  slave  power  rose,  culminated,  and  crumbled.  The  fight  against 
the  encroachments  of  slavery  precipitated  the  Civil  War,  and  the 
results  of  the  Rebellion  involved  the  remodeling  of  our  institu- 
tions. The  issues  were  so  vast  and  far-reaching,  they  touched 
so  nearly  every  interest  and  every  home,  that  small  men  could 
temporarily  fill  large  places.  But  the  master  minds  who  mar- 
shaled the  forces  for  this  tremendous  conflict,  and  saw  its  neces- 
sities and  outcome,  were  few.  Impartial  history  will  assign  the 
leadership  in  this  defense  and  crusade  to  Horace  Greeley. 

William  Lloyd  Garrison  and  Wendell  Phillips  were  brilliant 
scouts,  penetrating  far  in  the  advance,  but  contributing  compara- 
tively little  to  practical  results.  Lincoln,  Seward,  and  Chase  were 
the  great  commanders  in  the  field  of  debate  and  action.  But  it 
was  the  intelligence  of  Mr.  Greeley  which  forged  the  weapons 
and  furnished  the  ideas,  which  day  by  day  with  unequaled  vigor 
and  lucidity  described  the  wrongs  and  suggested  the  remedies, 
which  carried  into  millions  of  homes  every  week  conviction  and 
enthusiasm  for  free  soil  and  free  men,  which  from  an  exhaust- 
less  reservoir  of  intellectual  resources  provided  arguments  and 
illustrations  to  statesmen,  stump  speakers,  and  country  editors. 

It  was  an  unpopular  side  and  involved  personal  danger  and 
pecuniary  loss,  but  Greeley  never  counted  the  cost  when  he 
thought  he  was  right.  Society  ostracised,  business  men  frowned, 
clubs  passed  resolutions  of  censure,  and  mobs  threatened  and 
howled,  but  they  never  swerved  him  from  his  course  nor  checked 
his  pace.  It  was  the  fate  of  this  master  of  controversies  and 
indomitable  fighter  that  time  and  again  he  was  the  victim  of 
popular  fury  to  the  advocacy  of  ideas  which  afterward  became 
the  faith  of  the  people.  At  one  point  and  another  of  the  long 
and  desperate  struggle  every  one  of  the  political  leaders  hesi- 
tated, faltered,  and  compromised  with  the  enemy,  but  this  trib- 
une of  the  people,  speaking  for  the  millions  whom  he  had  in- 
spired by  his  ardor  and  equipped  with  his  opinions,  thundered  for 
justice  and  against  compromise  with  wrong.  During  the  long 
journey  through  the  wilderness,  he  was  often  compelled  to  hold 
up  the  feeble  arms  of  many  a  faint-hearted  Moses.  Though  al- 
ways a  non-combatant,  yet  when  the  flag  was  fired  upon  all  the 


STATUE  OF  HORACE  GREELEY  159 

fierce  fire  of  his  Scotch-Irish  nature  was  aroused.  He  would 
bring  the  whole  power  of  the  nation  immediately  into  the  field 
and  crush  at  one  mighty  blow  the  rebellion  and  its  cause.  While 
generals  were  issuing  proclamations,  congressmen  squandering 
invaluable  time,  the  North  incredulous  as  to  the  seriousness  of 
the  struggle,  and  the  rebel  States  with  admirable  skill  and  energy 
bringing  all  their  resources  to  the  front,  he  was  shouting :  "Ac- 
tion, action,  action!"  He  knew  that  the  emergency  demanded 
the  instant  and  overwhelming  display  of  the  power  of  the  na- 
tion or  a  long  war,  at  fearful  cost  of  life  and  money  and  of 
doubtful  issue,  with  an  ever-changing  public  sentiment. 

His  passionate  prayer  was  for  a  glorious  republic,  freed  from 
the  curse  of  slavery;  its  liberty  the  union  and  happiness  of  its 
people,  its  hospitality  the  hope  of  the  world.  His  marvelous 
faculty  for  condensing  an  argument  into  a  motto  started  the  in- 
spiring cry,  "On  to  Richmond."  The  whole  country  took  it  up, 
and  answered  it  in  so  savage  a  strain  that  the  administration  or- 
dered the  march. 

The  holiday  excursion,  broken,  decimated,  demoralized,  fled 
from  Bull  Run  to  Washington,  to  curse  him  for  their  defeat.  It 
was  not  for  him  to  provide  discipline  or  brains.  But  he  was 
buried  for  a  while  under  mountains  of  obloquy  and  abuse.  He 
was  made  the  victim  of  official  stupidity,  indiscretion,  and  incom- 
petence. 

Two  years  elapsed,  hundreds  of  thousands  of  lives  were  lost, 
hundreds  of  thousands  of  homes  were  wrecked,  and  thousands  of 
millions  of  dollars  were  spent  or  destroyed ;  the  Confederacy  had 
been  permitted  to  gather  all  its  resources  and  to  receive  in  its 
partial  success  the  encouragement  of  the  foreign  enemies  of 
the  great  Republic,  and  then,  with  the  people  applauding,  the 
best  talent  of  the  country  in  command,  and  overwhelming  forces 
behind  the  commander,  the  armies  moved  on  to  Richmond  and 
victory. 

Sure  of  his  great  constituency,  Greeley  demanded  on  behalf 
of  twenty  millions  of  people  the  emancipation  of  the  slaves.  It 
startled  the  cabinet  and  terrified  congress.  It  was  discussed  with 
bated  breath  in  the  church  porch  and  on  the  public  square. 
Though  its  author  was  only  a  private  citizen,  the  President  was 
compelled  to  reply.  Mr.  Lincoln's  answer  was  a  curt  dismissal 
of  the  plea,  but  in  the  epigrammatic  form  which  gave  such  force 


160  ORATIONS   AND   MEMORIAL   ADDRESSES 

and  popular  effect  to  his  utterances.  With  resistless  logic,  im- 
passioned eloquence,  and  unequaled  lucidity,  Mr.  Greeley  pressed 
the  argument  home  to  the  consciences  of  the  men  and  women  of 
America.  The  rising  tide  of  popular  feeling  beat  against  the  con- 
servative battlements  at  Washington,  and  one  morning  the  world 
was  electrified  by  the  Emancipation  Proclamation.  It  was  the 
offspring  of  the  imperious  spirit  and  commanding  influence  of 
Horace  Greeley.  The  war  was  over,  the  Union  triumphant,  and 
slavery  destroyed.  He  had  lived  to  see  his  prayers  answered, 
and  beyond  his  wildest  dreams. 

He  had  in  him  little  of  the  spirit  of  Simeon,  when  he  cried, 
"Lord,  now  lettest  thou  thy  servant  depart  in  peace."  He  de- 
voutly believed  that  God  had  always  work  yet  to  be  done.  His 
own  grand,  pure  nature  harbored  no  grudge;  his  judgment  was 
not  clouded  by  surviving  enmities.  As  he  would  have  gathered 
the  whole  power  of  the  loyal  people,  and  crushed  the  rebellion 
at  one  blow;  as  he  would  have  weakened  the  Confederacy  and 
emphasized  the  reprisals  of  war  by  striking  the  shackles  from  the 
slave;  so,  when  Lee  surrendered  at  Appomattox,  and  the  vic- 
torious armies  of  the  nation  returned  to  their  homes,  his  voice 
filled  the  land  with  a  generous  and  patriotic  plea  for  peace  and 
forgiveness.  First  of  all  our  leaders,  he  clearly  saw  that  home 
rule,  and  not  State  rights,  but  State  sovereignty  were  the  foun- 
dation principles  of  the  Federal  Union.  His  lofty  and  daring 
spirit  rose  to  the  full  height  of  this  conception  of  the  future  of 
our  country  when  he  became  a  bondsman  for  Jefferson  Davis. 
The  act  cost  him  the  Governorship  of  New  York,  and  led  to  the 
estrangement  of  friends  and  loss  of  money.  But  it  was  one  of 
those  staggering  blows  by  which  a  strong  man  wakes  up  his 
countrymen,  though  he  may  be  killed  by  the  recoil.  It  enforced 
the  not  yet  understood  lesson  of  Appomattox,  that  reconciliation 
and  unity  would  not  come  through  drumhead  courts-martial  and 
trials  for  treason.  Still  impatient  for  the  burial  of  war  issues, 
for  the  blending  of  the  people  of  the  whole  country  into  a  com- 
mon Americanism,  which  would  concentrate  their  energies  upon 
the  development  of  the  wealth  and  resources  of  the  land,  and  as 
he  believed  give  to  the  freedmen  their  political  rights,  he  organ- 
ized and  led  the  revolt  of  1872.  Its  labors  and  anxieties  sapped 
his  strength,  its  slanders  and  disappointments  broke  his  heart. 
But  his  victorious  spirit  heard  the  last  words  of  the  great  com- 


STATUE  OF  HORACE  GREELEY  161 

mander  General  Grant  echoing  his  sentiments,  and  has  witnessed 
the  nation  advancing  by  leaps  and  bounds  in  prosperity  and  happi- 
ness under  his  policy. 

Horace  Greeley  had  profound  faith  in  the  power  of  public 
opinion.  He  abhorred  war  and  violence  in  every  form.  He  be- 
lieved that  ultimately  and  within  the  Constitution  public  opinion 
would  root  out  slavery.  He  had  intense  disgust  for  the  manipu- 
lating of  caucuses  and  the  packing  of  conventions.  He  distrust- 
ed politicians  whose  talent  was  wire-pulling.  The  voice  of  the 
people  was  the  sound  for  which  he  was  always  listening.  He 
originated  the  idea  of  a  cheap  daily  paper,  and  revolutionized 
the  journalism  of  his  early  days.  His  aim  was  not  to  make 
money,  but  to  reach  the  masses.  His  ambition  in  starting  the 
Tribune  was  to  create  a  power  which  would  broaden  education 
and  liberalize  culture ;  which  should  support  its  party  without  be- 
ing its  slave;  which  could  fearlessly  expose  its  own  rascals  as 
well  as  unmask  the  enemy ;  which  would  give  hospitable  welcome 
to  the  discussion  of  theories  and  reforms  which  promised  to  bene- 
fit mankind.  The  ideal  for  which  he  worked  was  a  newspaper 
for  the  family,  which  would  be  free  from  prurient  news  and 
putrid  stories,  and  which  parents  would  be  glad  to  have  their  chil- 
dren read.  He  was  the  first  party  editor  who  was  not  governed 
by  a  subsidy  for  his  paper  or  a  salary  for  himself. 

He  founded  that  paradox,  an  independent  party  organ,  which 
both  follows  and  leads ;  which  influences  conventions  and  instructs 
congressmen;  which  more  frequently  foreshadows  platforms  and 
candidates  than  adopts  them.  Contemplating  his  idol  and  re- 
viewing his  life,  he  uttered  this  plaintive  prayer:  "Fame  is  a 
vapor ;  popularity  an  accident ;  riches  take  wings ;  the  only  earth- 
ly certainty  is  oblivion;  no  man  can  see  what  a  day  may  bring 
forth ;  while  those  who  cheer  to-day  will  often  curse  to-morrow ; 
yet  I  cherish  the  hope  that  the  journal  I  projected  and  established 
will  live  and  flourish  long  after  I  shall  have  moldered  into  for- 
gotten dust;  being  guided  by  a  larger  wisdom,  more  unerring 
sagacity,  to  discern  the  right,  though  not  by  a  more  unfaltering 
readiness  to  embrace  and  defend  it  at  whatever  cost;  and  that 
the  stone  which  covers  my  ashes  may  bear  to  future  eyes  the  still 
intelligible  inscription :     'Founder  of  the  New  York  Tribune/  " 

No  man  was  ever  more  prone  to  make  mistakes,  but  few,  if 
any,  ever  displayed  so  much  honesty  in  acknowledging  them.  If, 
Vol.  I— U 


162  ORATIONS   AND   MEMORIAL   ADDRESSES 

while  pouring  out  his  hot  wrath  against  the  offender,  he  dis- 
covered his  error,  he  emptied  the  vial  on  himself.  Fearless,  im- 
pulsive, and  frank  to  a  degree,  what  he  thought  he  said  and  said 
it  hard.  He  indulged  in  no  preliminaries,  but  struck  out  straight 
from  the  shoulder.  He  detested  subterfuge  or  chicane,  and  his 
own  mind  and  motives  were  transparent.  He  took  the  world  into 
his  confidence,  and  told  without  reserve  who  and  what  and  why 
he  loved  or  hated.  The  people  appreciated  and  were  proud  of 
his  childlike  simplicity  and  manly  courage,  and  had  unquestion- 
ing faith  in  the  purity  of  his  purposes.  When  he  was  right  he 
spoke  as  one  inspired,  and  when  he  was  wrong  his  quick  admis- 
sion or  wailing  repentance  only  deepened  and  strengthened  his 
hold  upon  the  millions  who  love  and  follow  a  leader  upon  whose 
honesty  they  can  implicitly  rely,  and  whose  imperfections  make 
him  one  of  themselves. 

Democracies  sometimes  give  the  hemlock  to  genius,  but  they 
always  resent  the  appearance  of  perfection.  That  Greeley  would 
lose  his  temper,  and  rave  and  tear  like  ordinary  mortals,  that  he 
could  be  prodded  into  the  most  awkward  and  chilling  profanity 
filled  them  with  delight,  and  made  this  prohibitionist,  abolitionist, 
devout  religionist,  and  fierce  reformer  a  popular  idol.  He  was 
the  most  conservative  of  radicals  and  the  most  radical  of  conserv- 
atives. Mme.  Roland  awaiting  her  turn  at  the  foot  of  the  guillo- 
tine gave  voice  to  the  agony  of  her  lofty  spirit  because  of  the 
degradation  of  the  revolution,  in  the  cry  of  "O  Liberty,  Liberty, 
what  crimes  are  committed  in  thy  name !" 

Reform  has  been  the  mask  of  demagogues  and  the  shield  of 
thieves,  the  pretense  of  charlatans  and  the  shibboleth  of  fools, 
until  the  word  is  the  incentive  not  to  applause,  but  to  inquiry. 
But  he  made  the  vocation  of  reformer  noble.  He  was  willing 
to  try  all  things,  yet  ever  holding  fast  to  the  good.  That  a  prin- 
ciple or  policy  was  encrusted  with  age,  sanctioned  by  tradition, 
or  sanctified  by  the  approval  of  the  past  had  no  influence  upon  his 
judgment ;  that  it  was  new  and  original,  full  of  hopeful  promise 
and  the  passion  of  the  hour  did  not  sweep  him  off  his  feet.  His 
clear  vision  and  the  rifle-shot  directness  and  swiftness  of  his 
reasoning  powers  both  made  him  the  great  editor,  and  brought 
him  at  once  face  to  face  with  the  issue  of  a  contest,  the  results 
of  a  reform,  or  the  remedies  for  an  evil.  These  qualities  made 
him  an  unsafe  party  leader,  but  an  invaluable  ally  of  his  party 


STATUE  OF  HORACE  GREELEY  163 

and  its  leaders.  He  cleared  away  the  underbrush  so  rapidly, 
and  built  roads  and  bridges  over  mountains  and  streams  so  fast, 
that  he  often  had  constituencies  at  the  front  calling  for  their 
laggard  or  timid  congressmen  to  come  on  and  take  their  positions. 
The  growth  of  many  commanding  centers  has  localized  in  a 
measure  the  metropolitan  press,  but  through  the  weekly  and  semi- 
weekly  he  spoke  to  the  people  of  every  State.  The  city  importer, 
the  New  England  manufacturer,  the  Western  farmer,  the  Whig 
planter  of  the  South,  the  California  miner,  the  logger  in  the 
forests  of  the  Northwest,  and  the  mechanic  and  the  laborer 
everywhere,  made  field  and  mill,  the  camp  at  noonday  and  at 
night,  the  cross-roads  and  country  churchyards,  resound  with 
controversies  triumphantly  carried  on  with  the  ideas  and  argu- 
ments of  Horace  Greeley.  He  saw  a  drinking  custom  about  his 
boyhood  home,  imbedded  in  the  universal  sentiment  of  health  and 
hospitality,  making  a  community  of  drunkards,  and  became  the 
first  to  sign  the  pledge  of  total  abstinence,  and  kept  it  for  life. 
The  touch  of  his  mother's  hand  was  always  on  his  head,  the 
pulsations  of  her  pious  heart  beating  against  his  breast,  and  no 
impure  thought  ever  escaped  his  lips ;  he  loved  and  cherished  his 
invalid  wife  with  unswerving  loyalty,  and  was  devoted  to  his 
children;  the  labors  of  the  week  closed  for  him  on  Saturday 
night,  and  the  Sabbath  always  found  him  in  his  accustomed 
seat  in  the  church. 

He  advocated  an  amendment  to  the  Constitution  to  subject 
the  employees  of  the  Government  to  sensible  rules  of  civil  service, 
thirty  years  before  it  found  a  friend  in  public  life.  He  thundered 
for  the  binding  of  the  Pacific  Coast  to  the  Atlantic  States  by 
continental  railroads,  to  be  laughed  at  as  a  visionary,  and  wel- 
comed afterward  as  a  benefactor.  He  proposed  a  homestead 
law  for  the  distribution  of  the  public  domain  among  actual  set- 
tlers, to  find  it  ridiculed  by  all  parties,  and  then  become  the 
foremost  plank  in  the  platform  of  his  own  party. 

It  is  the  weakness  of  many  great  minds  to  surround  them- 
selves with  small  men.  The  contrast  pleases  their  vanity,  and 
projects  into  prominence  their  superiority.  It  was  at  once  the 
strength  and  magnanimity  of  Mr.  Greeley  that  he  called  to  his 
side  the  ablest  assistants,  and  he  had  the  faculty  for  finding  talent 
and  developing  it.  Among  the  most  brilliant  names  in  journal- 
ism will  be  found  those  of  his  associates  and  disciples,  Henry  J. 


164  ORATIONS   AND   MEMORIAL   ADDRESSES 

Raymond,  George  Ripley,  Bayard  Taylor,  James  S.  Pike,  Mar- 
garet Fuller,  Park  Benjamin,  Sidney  Howard  Gay,  and  J.  R.  G. 
Hassard  among  those  who  have  joined  the  majority ;  and,  in  the 
long  and  distinguished  list  of  the  living,  Charles  A.  Dana,  White- 
law  Reid,  John  Hay,  George  W.  Smalley,  Charles  Nordhoff, 
William  Winter,  John  Russell  Young,  Amos  Cummings,  and 
Junius  Henri  Browne.  His  kindly  interest  in  young  men  attracted 
them  to  him  by  the  tenderest  ties.  He  came  to  my  defense  in  a 
hot  controversy  over  my  official  acts  in  my  youth,  with  the  ardor 
and  affection  of  a  father,  when  I  scarcely  knew  him ;  and,  when 
in  his  last  fatal  fight  he  said  he  needed  me,  I  followed  him  without 
question  and  ran  for  an  office  I  did  not  want. 

His  personal  peculiarities  were  some  of  the  charms  of  his 
intercourse.  I  recall  him  absorbed  in  warm  discussion  at  the 
table,  devouring  each  course  mechanically  and  ignorant  of  its 
quality  or  quantity,  and  rising  in  hot  indignation  when  the  taste 
of  the  Roman  punch  led  him  to  imagine  that  his  host  had  en- 
deavored to  impose  upon  his  well-known  temperance  principles. 

While  Seward  was  Governor  Mr.  Greeley  invited  him  to 
dinner  for  the  purpose  of  discussing  the  policy  and  prospects  of 
his  administration  and  of  the  Whig  party  in  the  nation,  but  so 
intense  and  dramatic  was  the  argument  and  programme  of  the 
host  that  it  was  long  past  midnight  when  they  discovered  that 
the  dinner  had  not  yet  been  ordered.  To  see  Horace  Greeley 
on  the  platform  was  to  witness  a  signal  triumph  of  mind  over 
matter.  The  shambling  gait,  the  unfashionable  and  never-fitting 
clothes,  the  awkward  gestures,  and  the  piping  voice  roused  the 
mirth  and  ridicule  of  the  audience.  But  as  that  vast  and  all- 
absorbing  intelligence  presented  the  subject  and  unfolded  the 
argument;  as  the  exhaustless  stores  of  memory  furnished  the 
facts,  and  that  faultless  intellect  presented  the  reasons;  as  the 
enthusiasm  and  fiery  faith  of  the  orator  captivated  his  hearers 
and  bore  them  along  upon  the  torrent  of  his  pure  and  vigorous 
English,  they  saw  only  the  grand  head,  the  lofty  brow,  the  radiant 
features  which  made  him  look  like  a  god. 

He  died  at  the  close  of  one  of  the  most  passionate  and  en- 
venomed of  Presidential  contests.  He  had  electrified  the  country 
by  a  series  of  campaign  speeches  unequaled  for  brilliancy  and 
versatility,  and  had  been  the  target  for  unprecedented  slander  and 
abuse.     But  with  his  departing  spirit,  the  clouds  were  lifted  and 


STATUE  OF  HORACE  GREELEY  165 

his  countrymen  saw  their  gain  in  his  life,  their  loss  in  his  death. 
His  funeral  fitly  illustrated  the  estimate  of  his  contemporaries 
and  the  judgment  of  posterity  as  to  his  place  in  the  history  of  his 
times.  Workingmen  lost  their  day  that  they  might  with  tearful 
eyes  have  a  last  look  at  the  face  of  him  who  had  done  more  to 
dignify  and  elevate  labor  and  benefit  the  laborer  than  any  man 
living  or  dead ;  and  with  the  President  and  Cabinet,  Congress  and 
the  Supreme  Court  as  mourners,  the  Government  adjourned  to  do 
him  honor. 

"My  life,"  he  said,  "has  been  busy  and  anxious,  but  not 
joyless.  Whether  it  shall  be  prolonged  for  few  or  more  years,  I 
am  grateful  that  it  has  endured  so  long,  and  that  it  has  abounded 
in  opportunities  for  good  not  wholly  unimproved,  and  in  experi- 
ences of  the  nobler  as  well  as  of  the  baser  impulses  of  human 
nature." 

As  the  flickering  spark  was  expiring,  the  Puritan  faith  and 
hope,  which  had  sustained  him  through  all  the  trials  of  life, 
furnished  his  last  words  and  found  expression  in  the  triumphant 
utterance,  "I  know  that  my  Redeemer  liveth.  It  is  done." 
This  statue  will  stand  for  centuries  as  a  fitting  memorial  and 
loving  tribute  from  his  friends,  but  his  monument  is  the  pros- 
perity of  the  Republic  from  the  great  measures  he  originated,, 
the  example  of  a  worker's  public-spirited  life,  the  broken  shackles 
of  the  slave,  and  the  great  journal  which  he  founded. 


MONUMENT  AT  LAKE  GEORGE 


ADDRESS  AT  THE  UNVEILING  OF  THE  MONUMENT  PRESENTED  TO 
THE  STATE  OF  NEW  YORK  BY  THE  SOCIETY  OF  COLONIAL 
WARS,  AT  LAKE  GEORGE,  SEPTEMBER  8,   I9O3. 

Ladies  and  Gentlemen  :  We  have  been  celebrating  for 
many  years  the  centennials  of  the  battles  of  the  Revolution,  of 
the  Declaration  of  Independence,  of  the  adoption  of  the  Constitu- 
tion, and  the  inauguration  of  our  first  President.  These  cere- 
monials have  been  of  incalculable  educational  value  for  the 
present  and  coming  generations.  Material  prosperity,  commer- 
cial ambition,  the  rewards  of  promotion  and  discovery  in  a  new 
country,  and  the  mad  rush  for  wealth  had  caused  the  memory  or 
knowledge  of  the  deeds  and  men  of  the  heroic  days  which  made 
us  a  nation  to  pass  almost  into  oblivion.  We  accepted  the 
blessings  of  liberty  as  a  matter  of  course  without  studying  or 
thinking  of  or  being  inspired  by  the  achievements  and  sacrifices 
of  the  fathers  of  the  Republic.  To-day  we  go  back  to  the  early 
time  of  preparation  and  discipline.  From  1755  to  1759  the 
wilderness  about  Lakes  George  and  Champlain  was  the  field  of 
struggle  between  the  two  strongest  nations  of  the  world  for 
control,  ownership,  and  government  of  the  North  American  con- 
tinent. A  few  thousand  hardy  pioneers  and  frontiersmen  were 
fighting  both  for  an  empire  and  for  the  civilization  and  institu- 
tions which  should  govern  it. 

The  English  planted  a  fringe  of  settlements  along  the  Atlantic 
Coast,  but  claimed  the  whole  country  to  the  Pacific  Ocean  by 
virtue  of  the  discoveries  of  Sebastian  Cabot.  The  French  colo- 
nists built  their  cabins  and  laid  out  their  farms  along  the  St. 
Lawrence  River,  and  by  adventurous  explorations  found  and 
occupied  the  vast  regions  about  the  great  lakes  and  the  valleys 
of  the  Ohio  and  Mississippi. 

No  more  courageous  or  capable  travelers  ever  braved  the 
dangers  of  the  wilderness  and  its  savage  denizens  and  the  perils 
of  navigation  on  unknown  waters  than  did  the  Jesuit  Fathers 
La  Salle,  Hennepin,  Joliet,  and  Marquette,  who  in  birch  bark 

166 


MONUMENT  AT  LAKE  GEORGE  167 

canoes  and  tiny  and  frail  sloops  sailed  along  the  shores  of  Lakes 
Erie,  Michigan,  Huron,  and  Superior,  up  and  down  the  Fox, 
Wisconsin,  Illinois,  Wabash,  St.  Croix,  and  Kankakee  Rivers; 
and  the  Mississippi  from  the  Falls  of  St.  Anthony  to  the  Gulf  of 
Mexico.  They  established  missions  and  raised  the  flag  of 
France  from  New  Orleans  to  Natchez,  at  the  junction  of  the 
Ohio  and  Monongahela,  at  Pittsburgh,  at  Chicago,  at  Detroit,  at 
Niagara,  at  the  outlet  of  Lake  Ontario  and  on  Lake  Champlain 
and  Lake  George.  Soldiers  followed,  and  French  fortresses 
commanded  the  country  and  the  French  monopolized  the  fur 
trade  with  the  Indians  all  over  the  northwest,  the  middle  west 
and  the  territories  tributary  to  the  Mississippi. 

The  French  had  greater  faculty  for  friendship  with  the 
Indians  than  the  English  and  made  alliances  with  the  powerful 
and  warlike  tribes  who  roamed  and  hunted  over  this  vast  area. 
The  danger  to  the  colonies  was  so  imminent  and  border  conflicts 
so  common  that  they  were  brought  to  bury  their  differences  and 
jealousies  and  act  together.  The  wise  and  farsighted  Franklin 
called  a  convention  at  Albany  in  1754  and  framed  a  plan  for 
colonial  union.  The  movement  was  premature  and  was  rejected. 
But  its  discussion  aroused  public  sentiment  and  prepared  the 
way  for  the  Confederation  in  1776 — twenty-two  years  after- 
wards. In  1754,  as  in  1776,  Franklin's  convention  made  Phila- 
delphia the  capital  because  it  could  be  reached  from  all  parts  of 
the  country  in  twenty  days.  Franklin's  confederacy  was  self- 
preservative  against  the  French  and  Indians,  and  he  lived  to  see 
his  idea  of  colonial  union  for  liberty  and  independence  adopted 
by  the  Continental  Congress,  he  being  one  of  its  most  conspicuous 
members. 

England  and  France  had  been  at  war  for  more  than  two 
hundred  years.  Religious  animosities  had  embittered  racial 
differences.  The  American  colonists  had  an  inherited  distrust 
and  enmity  for  the  French.  The  wonder  at  French  achievement 
is  enhanced  when  we  remember  that  she  is  not  a  colonizing 
nation  and  that  she  occupied  and  held  Canada  and  two-thirds  of 
what  is  now  the  United  States  for  nearly  a  century  against  an 
enemy  at  least  twenty  times  more  numerous. 

The  situation  of  the  colonies  was  intolerable.  The  mother 
country  was  indifferent  and  action  must  be  taken  at  once. 
Governor   Dinwiddie   dispatched   Colonel   George   Washington, 


168  ORATIONS   AND   MEMORIAL   ADDRESSES 

already  distinguished  for  courage  and  discretion,  though  only 
twenty-two  years  of  age,  at  the  head  of  a  small  force  of  Vir- 
ginians to  capture  Fort  Duquesne.  They  came  in  contact  with 
a  French  outpost  and  Washington,  carrying  a  musket,  fired  the 
first  shot.  He  thus  began  in  1754  the  war  which  ended  in  1763 
by  the  loss  to  the  French  of  all  their  American  possessions.  The 
farmers'  shot  at  Lexington  which  echoed  around  the  world  has 
long  been  the  inspiration  of  patriotism  and  the  theme  of  elo- 
quence, but  it  is  an  interesting  question  whether  without  the  gun 
of  Washington  in  the  Virginia  wilderness,  the  battle  of  Lexing- 
ton would  ever  have  been  fought.  The  French,  who  vastly 
outnumbered  the  Colonials,  surrounded  them  and  compelled  their 
capitulation.  On  the  4th  of  July,  1754,  Washington  and  the 
remnant  of  his  little  band,  retaining  their  arms  and  accoutre- 
ments, marched  out  of  their  entrenchments  and  returned  to  their 
homes.  The  4th  of  July  marks  the  only  day  on  which  in  thirty 
years  of  warfare  the  Father  of  his  Country  ever  surrendered, 
and  also  the  anniversary  of  the  Independence  of  his  Country 
which  was  mainly  achieved  by  his  wisdom  and  valor. 

The  mother  country  had  now  become  fully  aroused  to  the 
crisis  and  sent  over  General  Braddock  with  two  regiments  of 
regulars,  veterans  of  European  wars.  The  Colonial  Governors 
met  him  and  planned  the  famous  campaign  of  1755. 

Governor  Lawrence,  of  Nova  Scotia,  was  to  complete  the 
conquest  of  that  Province. 

General  Braddock  was  to  capture  Fort  Duquesne  and  regain 
the  Ohio  Valley. 

Governor  Shirley,  of  Massachusetts,  was  to  win  Fort  Niagara 
and  cut  off  communications  with  the  Ohio  and  Mississippi. 

Sir  William  Johnson,  of  New  York,  was  to  seize  Crbwn 
Point  and  expel  the  French  from  the  region  of  Lakes  George  and 
Champlain. 

"Fort  Duquesne  can  detain  me  only  three  or  four  days,"  said 
Braddock  gayly  to  Governor  Shirley  as  the  Governors  separated, 
"and  then  I  will  join  you  at  Niagara."  But  this  gallant  and 
headstrong  soldier  was  never  to  see  the  wonders  of  the  great 
waterfall.  Contemptuous  of  the  advice  of  Washington  and 
recklessly  brave,  he  fell  in  the  ambush  which  nearly  annihilated 
his  army.  So  complete  and  terrible  was  the  disaster  that 
Governor  Shirley,  who  had  advanced  as  far  as  Oswego,  hastily 


MONUMENT  AT  LAKE  GEORGE  169 

retreated  to  Boston.  Johnson  had  thirty-four  hundred  New 
York  and  New  England  troops,  the  latter  under  command  of 
General  Phineas  Lyman,  and  camped  between  the  Upper  Hudson 
and  Lake  George.  General  Dieskau,  the  French  commander, 
sailed  up  Lake  Champlain  with  fourteen  hundred  men,  attacked 
and  routed  a  thousand  of  Johnson's  troops  who  were  marching 
to  the  relief  of  Fort  Edward  and  then,  with  desperate  courage 
and  inferior  force,  attempted  to  stampede  Johnson's  main  army 
in  their  camp.  Johnson  was  wounded  early  in  the  engagement 
and  was  succeeded  in  command  by  General  Lyman.  After  a 
stubborn  contest  the  French  were  driven  from  the  field. 
Dieskau,  fighting  valiantly,  was  wounded  and  taken  prisoner. 
Although  Johnson  was  victorious  in  this  battle  and  the  French 
retired  to  Crown  Point  the  campaign  was  disastrous,  inasmuch 
as  the  French  were  not  driven  away  from  the  region  of  Lake 
George  and  Lake  Champlain. 

The  campaigns  of  1756  and  1757  on  the  part  of  the  English 
were  fatal  and  farcical.  The  British  and  Colonial  forces  out- 
numbered the  French  four  to  one,  but  were  under  the  command 
of  General  Loudon,  one  of  those  phenomenal  incompetent  and 
blundering  blockheads  whom  favor  and  seniority  advance  occa- 
sionally to  the  highest  positions.  He  was  before  Louisburg 
with  twelve  thousand  regulars  and  sixteen  war  vessels,  while  the 
French  had  only  four  thousand  men  available.  Instead  of  as- 
saulting and  capturing  the  fortress,  as  he  easily  could  have  done, 
he  planted  vast  fields  of  onions  to  keep  off  the  scurvy  and  then 
hastily  retreated  to  New  York,  where,  in  a  causeless  panic,  he 
proposed  to  fortify  Long  Island  so  as  to  be  secure  from  the 
terrible  French  after  they  had  won  the  city.  In  the  meantime 
the  French  became  masters  of  the  whole  Champlain  and  Lake 
George  country,  destroyed  Oswego,  made  Ticonderoga  and 
Crown  Point  well-nigh  impregnable,  compelled  the  surrender  of 
Fort  William  Henry,  and  drove  the  English  out  of  the  valley 
of  the  Ohio.  France  closed  the  campaign  in  possession  of  the 
most  magnificent  colonial  domain  ever  held  by  any  nation.  It 
was  many  times  greater  on  the  North  American  Continent  than 
the  combined  possessions  there  of  England  and  Spain. 

The  situation  was  dramatic.  Both  empire  and  the  destinies 
of  mankind  were  at  stake.  France  at  that  period  represented 
all  that  was  despotic  and  reactionary,  while  the  English  people 


170  ORATIONS   AND   MEMORIAL   ADDRESSES 

on  both  sides  of  the  Atlantic  had  Magna  Charta,  the  bill  of  rights, 
and  representative  government.  Arbitrary  kings  and  cabinets 
might  check  but  could  not  stop  the  onflowing  and  rising  tide  of 
civil  and  religious  liberty.  The  English  colonies  then  contained 
nearly  two  millions  of  people,  who  claimed  the  continent  but 
could  not  venture  more  than  a  few  hundred  miles  from  the 
Atlantic  Coast;  while  the  French,  with  a  population  of  about 
one  hundred  thousand,  by  a  most  skillful  and  tactical  system  of 
forts  and  outposts  held  possession  of  eighty  per  cent,  of  the 
country. 

As  in  all  grave  crises  in  history,  the  occasion  called  for  a 
leader.  There  were  several  among  the  Colonials  who  after- 
wards became  distinguished  in  the  War  of  the  Revolution.  But 
the  home  government  feared  to  give  freedom  to  such  activities. 
Every  movement  and  policy  was  controlled  from  London,  and 
through  the  royal  governors  of  the  provinces.  They  refused  to 
Washington  and  the  Colonial  officers  any  recognition  in  rank  in 
the  army.  General  Loudon  was  an  example  of  the  possibilities 
of  defeat  to  the  most  righteous  cause  supported  by  an  enthusiastic 
people  and  with  overwhelming  superiority  in  numbers  and  equip- 
ment under  an  incompetent  commander. 

A  handful  of  masterful  men  have  directed  the  destinies  of 
mankind  and  shaped  the  course  of  history.  After  years  of  blun- 
dering, stupidity,  and  pig-headedness,  Pitt,  the  great  commoner, 
became  Prime  Minister  and  laid  the  foundation  of  modern  Eng- 
land. The  first  faculty  of  a  statesman  is  that  quick  appreciation 
of  character  and  equipment  which  unerringly  selects  the  men 
best  fitted  for  the  task  assigned  them.  Pitt,  undismayed  by 
disasters  and  defeats,  grasped  the  situation.  He  saw  that  the 
forces  for  victory  were  available,  dismissed  the  failures  and 
fools,  secured  a  grant  from  Parliament  of  sixty  millions  of 
dollars  for  the  campaign,  proclaimed  that  he  would  not  be  satis- 
fied unless  every  foot  of  soil  held  by  France  in  America  had  been 
captured,  and  then  selected  Generals  Abercrombie,  Amherst, 
Howe,  and  Wolfe  to  command  the  armies.  Fifty  thousand  men, 
more  than  two-thirds  of  them  colonial  volunteers,  were  placed  in 
the  field.  The  plan  of  campaign  was  to  attack  with  overwhelm- 
ing force  the  widely  separated  strongholds  of  the  French. 
General  Amherst  captured  Louisburg  and  Prince  Edward  Island 
with  a  vast  amount  of  military  stores.     Forbes  with  nine  thous- 


MONUMENT  AT  LAKE  GEORGE  171 

and  men  marched  against  Fort  Duquesne.  The  advance  was 
defeated,  but  on  the  approach  of  the  Colonials,  commanded  by 
Washington,  the  garrison  fired  the  Fort  and  fled  down  the  Ohio. 
The  victorious  army  raised  the  British  flag  over  the  ruins  of  Fort 
Duquesne  and  named  the  site  Pittsburgh  in  honor  of  the  great 
Minister.  Thus  did  England's  most  enlightened  and  far-sighted 
statesman  receive  significant  immortality  in  the  New  World, 
consolidated  under  one  government  by  his  genius,  in  having  the 
gateway  of  the  West  and  the  centre  of  the  productive  wealth  and 
manufacturing  enterprise  of  the  country  bear  his  name.  Sir 
William  Johnson  reduced  Fort  Niagara  and  cut  off  communica- 
tion between  Canada  and  the  Mississippi  and  Ohio.  These  victo- 
ries were  won  with  little  effort.  It  was  the  crushing  process  of 
superior  numbers  admirably  led.  But  around  Lake  George  and 
over  these  wooded  hills  and  valleys  the  fighting  was  desperate 
and  the  struggle  fierce.  The  fortunes  of  France  were  in  the 
hands  of  Montcalm,  one  of  the  most  brilliant  soldiers  of  the  age, 
but  with  only  four  thousand  men  to  do  battle  against  the  encir- 
cling hosts  of  the  enemy.  He  hurled  fifteen  thousand  from 
the  ramparts  of  Ticonderoga,  inflicting  upon  the  assaulting  party 
a  loss  of  nineteen  hundred  and  sixteen,  and  compelled  their 
retreat  after  a  few  hours'  battle.  But  he  saw  the  hopelessness 
of  the  contest  when  in  all  Canada  he  could  count  on  only  seven 
thousand  against  fifty  thousand,  flushed  with  victory,  gathering 
from  the  smoking  ruins  of  Fort  Duquesne,  Niagara,  and 
Frontenac  for  the  finish  from  Lake  Champlain  and  Lake  George 
to  the  St.  Lawrence  and  Quebec.  He  sent  a  despairing  cry  to 
the  French  Ministry :  "Peace,  Peace ;  no  matter  what  the  bounda- 
ries !"  But  the  French  King  vacillated  and  Pitt  was  relentless. 
So  when  Amherst  in  the  next  campaign  had  conquered  Lake 
Champlain  and  its  territory,  Montcalm  abandoned  Ticonderoga 
and  Crown  Point  and  concentrated  all  his  forces  for  the  protec- 
tion of  Quebec. 

This  Colonial  War,  which  lasted  to  within  two  years  of  the 
length  of  the  struggle  of  the  Revolution,  and  whose  issues  were 
so  tremendous,  occupies  only  a  few  chapters  in  American  and 
scarcely  a  page  in  European  history.  It  is  remembered  in  school 
books  and  popular  recollection  mainly  by  the  heroism  and  death 
of  Wolfe  and  Montcalm.  It  was  marked  by  savage  conflicts, 
Indian  massacres,  numberless  deeds  of  valor,  and  countless  epi- 


172  ORATIONS   AND   MEMORIAL   ADDRESSES 

sodes  of  marvelous  adventure;  but,  in  all  great  wars  and  civic 
contests  time  obliterates  and  eliminates  until  one  name  typifies 
the  era  and  its  outcome.  Most  of  the  actors  and  events  are  for- 
gotten, save  to  the  student  or  the  antiquary,  except  William  Pitt 
and  General  James  Wolfe,  and  the  incident  of  Washington's 
heroism  and  hairbreadth  escapes  on  Braddock's  bloody  field.  Pitt 
and  Wolfe  have  fitting  memorials  among  England's  mighty  dead 
in  Westminster  Abbey,  while  Washington  lives  in  the  hearts  of 
his  countrymen. 

The  fight  on  the  Plains  of  Abraham,  after  the  scaling  of  the 
heights  in  the  rear  of  Quebec  by  Wolfe  and  his  army,  was  one 
of  the  decisive  battles  of  history.  Romance,  eloquence,  and 
poetry  have  given  it  memory  and  lustre  beyond  many  of  the 
greatest  and  bloodiest  battles  of  the  past.  Though  the  numbers 
engaged  were  insignificant,  few,  if  any,  conflicts  have  been  fol- 
lowed by  such  far-reaching  results,  affecting  the  destinies  of 
nations  and  the  liberties  of  mankind. 

Wolfe  fell  mortally  wounded.  "They  run!  they  run!" 
shouted  his  companions.  "Who  run?"  "The  French  are  flying 
everywhere,"  was  the  reply.  "Do  they  run  already?"  "Yes," 
was  their  answer.  "Then,"  said  Wolfe,  "I  die  happy,"  and  fell 
back  into  the  arms  of  his  friends.  At  the  same  moment  Mont- 
calm, who  had  been  wherever  the  fight  was  thickest  and  peril 
greatest,  was  stricken  down.  "Shall  I  survive?"  he  asked  the 
surgeon.  "But  a  few  hours  at  most,"  was  the  sorrowful  reply. 
"So  much  the  better,"  said  the  French  hero,  "I  shall  not  live  to 
witness  the  surrender  of  Quebec." 

The  war  which  began  with  Washington's  musket  fire  on  the 
26th  of  May,  1754,  ended  with  the  fall  of  Quebec  the  17th  of 
September,  1759.  It  continued  on  the  ocean  for  three  years 
longer  and  then,  in  1763,  its  issues  were  settled  by  the  Treaty 
of  Peace  of  Paris.  In  that  treaty  France  surrendered  to  England 
all  her  possessions  in  North  America  except  Louisiana,  and  that 
territory  she  was  forced  to  give  to  Spain.  The  vast  and  fertile 
area  now  comprised  in  twenty-four  of  the  most  populous  and 
prosperous  states  of  the  American  Republic  and  the  whole  of 
Canada  were  lost  forever  to  France  and  her  people. 

The  benefits  of  this  war  to  the  American  people  cannot  be 
overestimated.  It  was  the  school  of  the  Revolution.  It  accus- 
tomed the  Colonies  to  act  in  concert  where  they  had  common 


MONUMENT  AT  LAKE  GEORGE  173 

interests.  It  brought  their  public  men  into  familiar  intercourse 
and  established  that  strongest  of  ties  among  the  people  of  the 
country,  the  comradeship  of  soldiers  in  the  camp,  the  march  and 
battle.  Washington  and  most  of  the  commanders  in  the  Conti- 
nental army  were  trained  during  these  five  years  by  the  ablest 
generals  of  Great  Britain.  In  recurring  recruitment  by  the 
expiration  of  terms  of  enlistment  a  large  proportion  of  able- 
bodied  youths  of  the  various  colonies  had  large  and  valuable 
experience  in  the  art  of  war.  They  served  with  veterans  of 
European  campaigns  and  under  famous  generals  of  the  Old 
World,  and  they  fought  soldiers  of  France  who  had  seen  service 
on  many  a  Continental  battlefield.  This  horizontal  view  dissi- 
pated their  dread  of  regulars,  gave  them  confidence  in  themselves, 
and  a  feeling  of  superiority  for  fighting  in  a  new  and  undeveloped 
country. 

The  strength  as  well  as  the  rights  of  the  people  of  the  colonies 
was  demonstrated.  The  struggle  stimulated  a  keen  and  wide- 
spread discussion  of  the  relations  of  the  colonies  to  the  mother 
country,  of  their  equal  right  with  Englishmen  at  home  in  every 
guarantee  of  freedom  and  representation  and  also  a  large  and 
illuminating  discussion  of  the  fundamental  principles  of  liberty, 
which  were  philosophical  toys  among  men  of  genius  in  France, 
but  produced  a  tremendous  impression  upon  the  colonists. 

If  England  and  France  had  come  to  an  agreement  over  their 
home  disputes  and  then  in  a  rough  and  ready  way  partitioned 
these  far-away  and  poorly  appreciated  provinces,  the  fate  of  our 
forefathers  might  have  been  sealed.  They  could  not  have  con- 
tended against  Great  Britain  on  the  Atlantic,  and  this  vigilant, 
aggressive  and  grasping  enemy  north  of  the  headwaters  of  the 
Hudson  and  west  of  the  Alleghanies.  The  clock  marking  the 
progress  of  American  development  in  institutions  and  resources 
would  never  have  struck  the  jubilant  hours  of  the  nineteenth  and 
twentieth  centuries. 

The  harsh  conditions  of  the  Treaty  of  Paris  left  France  not 
only  bereft  of  her  magnificent  empire  in  North  America,  but 
humiliated  and  vindictive.  The  tragic  tale  of  the  heartless  out- 
rage on  the  Acadians  gave  fury  to  the  passions  of  King  and 
nobles  which  was  shared  by  the  army  and  navy  and  in  peasants' 
cottages  in  every  nook  and  corner  of  France. 

They  had  no  animosity  against  the  Colonials.     It  was  all  for 


174  ORATIONS   AND   MEMORIAL   ADDRESSES 

England.  They  impatiently  waited  for  the  time  to  strike. 
French  monarchy,  Bourbon  and  despotic,  had  no  sympathy  with 
the  lofty  aspirations  of  the  American  people  for  liberty  upon 
the  foundation  of  the  charter  framed  in  the  cabin  of  the  May- 
flower and  voiced  in  the  burning  phrases  of  the  Declaration  of 
Independence.  But  when  we  had  demonstrated  that  with  some 
assistance  success  would  be  assured,  the  French  government  saw 
that  the  hour  of  retribution  and  revenge  had  come.  In  making 
an  alliance  with  the  struggling,  almost  despairing,  young  Repub- 
lic and  sending  fleets  and  armies  to  our  aid,  the  King  and  his 
cabinet  entered  upon  the  most  popular  war  in  the  history  of  his 
house;  to  wrest  from  England  those  lost  and  bitterly  lamented 
provinces  and  to  build  up  a  new  power  against  her  upon  the  soil 
taken  from  France  under  such  profoundly  mortifying  conditions, 
made  the  contest  a  holy  war.  The  motive  of  the  Government 
detracts  in  no  measure  from  the  gallantry  of  Lafayette  and 
our  gratitude  to  him.  He  and  others  opened  the  eyes  of  their 
country,  but  this  youth  of  twenty  could  have  accomplished  little 
at  Versailles,  had  he  not  been  able  by  his  rank  and  position  to 
secure  a  hearing  and  so  arrest  the  frivolities  of  the  Court  and 
voice  the  feelings  of  his  countrymen  by  showing  that  the  hour 
had  come. 

The  fruits  of  the  exasperation  over  the  Treaty  of  Paris  were 
gathered  by  us  again  nearly  a  half  century  later.  Napoleon  had 
regained  Louisiana  from  Spain  by  the  gift  to  a  Bourbon  Prince 
of  the  bauble  of  a  toy  kingdom.  He  saw  that  with  Great 
Britain's  command  of  the  sea  it  might  be  captured  by  her  navy. 
To  prevent  her  from  securing  this  vast  territory,  the  control  of 
the  mouth  of  the  Mississippi,  and  a  dominating  influence  in  the 
Western  Hemisphere  became  part  of  his  plan.  He  had  inherited 
the  national  shame  and  resentment  of  1763.  To  our  commis- 
sioners who  were  endeavoring  to  make  terms  for  the  free  naviga- 
tion of  the  Mississippi,  his  answer  was  quick  and  peremptory. 
"You  can  have  the  whole  territory."  This  splendid  domain, 
which  made  possible  our  Western  development,  consolidated  our 
Union,  and  gave  us  so  much  of  the  wealth,  power,  and  happiness 
which  we  enjoy,  is  a  legacy  of  the  war  to  whose  Colonial  heroes 
we  here  to-day  dedicate  this  monument, 


CENTENNIAL  OF  NEW  YORK  STATE 


ADDRESS  AT  THE  CENTENNIAL  CELEBRATION  OF  THE  FORMATION 
OF  THE  GOVERNMENT  OF  THE  STATE  AT  KINGSTON,  NEW 
YORK,  JULY  30,    1877. 

Fellow-Citizens:  Centennial  celebrations  crowd  upon  us. 
Appropriate  commemorations  of  events  of  the  Revolutionary 
period  are  the  pleasure  and  duty  of  the  year.  Most  of  them 
are  upon  historic  battle-fields,  and  recall  the  feats  of  arms  of  our 
victorious  ancestors.  The  occasion  which  calls  us  together  has 
deeper  significance  than  any  battle.  It  is  the  anniversary  of  the 
declaration  and  establishment  of  those  principles  of  constitutional 
liberty,  without  which  the  Continental  soldier  had  fought  and 
died  in  vain.  The  story  of  the  formation  and  expression  of 
popular  opinion  upon  popular  rights  during  the  Colonial  era,  its 
development  in  the  Constitution  of  1777,  and  its  results  for  a 
century,  can  only  be  sketched  in  the  limits  of  an  address.  Unlike 
the  other  colonies,  New  York  had  no  chartered  rights ;  there  were 
no  limitations  on  the  royal  prerogative,  and  it  was  only  by  long 
and  continued  struggles  that  any  immunities  or  privileges  were 
secured. 

The  Dutch  had  brought  from  Holland  ideas  of  toleration  and 
liberty,  of  which  that  country  was  for  a  time  the  only  asylum  in 
the  world;  the  English  colonists  were  firm  in  their  devotion  to 
representative  government.  By  every  process  short  of  revolu- 
tion during  the  early  period  of  English  rule,  the  arbitrary  exac- 
tions of  the  royal  Governors  were  resisted,  and  the  demands  for 
an  Assembly  of  the  people  never  ceased.  The  claim  was  based 
upon  the  natural  and  inherent  rights  of  a  free  people. 

In  1683  the  Home  Government,  unable  longer  to  resist,  called 
together  an  Assembly  elected  by  the  people.  It  was  the  dawn  of 
representative  government  in  New  York.  The  first  Assembly 
of  our  ancestors  immediately  asserted  and  enacted  into  laws  the 
fundamental  principles  of  civil  liberty.  They  passed  laws  for  a 
triennial  Assembly ;  they  declared  all  power  to  vest  in  the  Gov- 
ernor, Council,  and  people  met  in  General  Assembly.     The  privi- 

175 


176  ORATIONS   AND   MEMORIAL   ADDRESSES 

leges  of  members  of  Parliament  were  conferred  upon  the 
Assembly  and  its  members ;  their  consent  must  be  had  to  the  levy 
of  any  tax,  and  all  the  guarantees  contained  in  Magna  Charta, 
in  the  Bill  of  Rights,  in  the  Habeas  Corpus  Act,  together  with 
trial  by  jury  and  freedom  of  conscience  in  matters  of  religion, 
were  declared  to  be  the  rights,  liberties,  and  privileges  of  the 
inhabitants  of  New  York.  They  created  the  township — that 
school  of  self-government — provided  the  civil  divisions  upon  the 
plan  which  has  prevailed  substantially  ever  since,  and  organized 
superior  and  inferior  courts  for  the  administration  of  justice. 
The  rights  and  liberties  thus  established  were  often  violated  and 
arbitrarily  suspended  or  denied,  but  every  repetition  of  such  tyr- 
anny only  served  to  inflame  to  passionate  devotion  the  people's 
love  of  liberty,  and  to  prepare  the  way  for  the  Declaration  of 
Independence.  Ninety-three  years  after  this  memorable  asser- 
tion of  popular  rights,  petition  and  remonstrance  having  alike 
failed,  the  people  determined  to  peril  life  and  fortune  to  main- 
tain and  enlarge  them.  In  1776  New  York  was  without  a 
regular  government.  The  Council  was  dissolved;  the  General 
Assembly  prorogued,  and  the  royal  Governor  a  fugitive  under 
the  protection  of  the  guns  of  the  British  fleet. 

The  Provincial  Congress  sitting  in  New  York  owed  its  exist- 
ence to  the  necessities  of  the  times.  It  was  a  revolutionary  body, 
its  only  charter  an  election  by  the  people.  On  the  15th  of  May 
of  that  year  the  Continental  Congress,  then  sitting  in  Philadel- 
phia, adopted  a  resolution  requesting  the  respective  assemblies 
and  conventions  of  the  United  Colonies,  "where  no  government 
sufficient  for  the  exigencies  of  their  affairs  had  been  established, 
to  adopt  such  government  as  should  in  the  opinion  of  the  represen- 
tatives of  the  people  best  conduce  to  the  happiness  and  safety 
of  their  constituents  in  particular  and  America  in  general.', 
They  also  recommended  the  suppression  of  all  authority  derived 
from  the  Crown  of  Great  Britain,  and  the  assumption  and  exer- 
cise of  government  under  authority  from  the  people  of  the  colo- 
nies. Of  the  thirteen  colonies,  all  except  Rhode  Island  and 
Connecticut  adopted  the  recommendation.  Their  charters  did 
not  reserve  to  the  Crown  the  control  over  or  veto  upon  their 
internal  affairs,  and  with  them  such  action  was  unnecessary. 
Virginia's  Constitution  was  first,  and  New  York's  fifth,  in  the 
order  of  adoption. 


CENTENNIAL  OF  NEW  YORK  STATE  177 

A  few  days  after  the  passage  of  this  resolution  the  Provincial 
Congress  met  in  New  York ;  Gouverneur  Morris,  a  delegate  from 
the  County  of  Westchester,  then  but  twenty-four  years  of  age, 
signalized  his  entrance  into  public  life  by  urging  immediate 
action,  in  a  speech  remarkable  for  its  courage  and  radicalism, 
and  its  strong  presentation  of  the  thought  of  the  time.  He 
boldly  declared  that  reconciliation  with  the  Mother  Country 
was  a  delusion;  liberty  and  security  could  be  had  only  by  inde- 
pendent government;  and  moved  that  a  committee  be  appointed 
to  draw  up  a  plan  for  the  frame  of  the  government.  These  men, 
acting  upon  well-understood  principles,  and  jealous  of  every 
assumption  of  power,  thought  that  this  Congress  was  not  elected 
for  this  purpose. 

A  committee  was  finally  appointed,  to  whom  the  whole  subject 
was  referred,  and  on  the  27th  of  May  they  reported  "that  the 
right  of  framing,  creating,  or  remodeling  civil  governments,  is 
and  ought  to  be  in  the  people";  that  the  old  form  of  govern- 
ment was  dissolved,  and  a  new  form  was  absolutely  necessary; 
and  that,  as  doubts  existed  whether  the  Provincial  Congress  had 
power  to  act,  the  people  of  the  colony  be  called  to  elect  a  new 
Congress  specially  instructed  upon  the  question  of  a  new  govern- 
ment. This  report  is  remarkable  as  the  earliest,  clearest,  and 
most  emphatic  declaration  of  the  doctrine  of  popular  sovereign- 
ty. It  was  New  York's  contribution  to  American  liberty, 
learned  by  more  than  half  a  century  of  incessant  struggle  of  the 
representatives  elected  by  the  people  with  the  representatives  of 
the  royal  power. 

The  report  of  the  committee  was  adopted,  and  on  the  31st  a 
series  of  resolutions,  prepared  by  Mr.  Jay,  was  passed,  calling 
upon  the  several  counties  to  elect  a  new  body,  with  power  to  form 
a  new  government,  and  instructed  also  upon  the  question  of 
united  colonial  independence.  In  the  mean  time  the  seat  of  war 
was  transferred  to  New  York.  On  Sunday  afternoon  of  the 
30th  of  June  the  British  fleet  and  army  under  Lord  Howe  having 
entered  the  harbor,  the  Congress,  apprehensive  of  an  attack  by 
the  enemy,  resolved  that  the  next  Congress  should  meet  at  White 
Plains,  in  the  County  of  Westchester,  and  adjourned.  On  the 
9th  of  July,  1776,  the  newly  elected  delegates  met  at  the  court- 
house in  that  place  and  elected  General  Woodhull  President, 
and  John  McKesson  and  Robert  Berrian  Secretaries.  During 
Vol.  1—12 


178  ORATIONS   AND   MEMORIAL   ADDRESSES 

the  forenoon  a  letter  was  received  from  the  delegates  of 
New  York  in  the  Continental  Congress,  inclosing  the  Declara- 
tion of  American  Independence,  which  had  been  adopted  on  the 
4th.  It  was  immediately  read  and  referred  to  a  committee,  con- 
sisting of  Messrs.  Jay,  Yates,  Hobart,  Brashier,  and  Wm.  Smith. 
It  was  a  critical  moment  for  these  men.  They  had  been  just 
elected;  only  a  few  hours  had  elapsed  since  they  had  qualified 
and  entered  upon  their  duties,  and  now  their  first  legislative  act 
was  to  make  up  their  record  upon  an  issue  which,  if  successful, 
made  them  patriots ;  if  it  failed,  traitors  and  felons.  How  firm 
was  their  resolve,  how  clear  their  purpose,  how  serene  their 
minds,  is  evidenced  by  the  fact  that  on  the  afternoon  of  the  same 
day  the  committee  reported  resolutions  concurring  in  the  Declara- 
tion, fully  adopting  it,  and  instructing  our  delegates  in  the  Gen- 
eral Congress  to  support  the  same,  and  give  their  united  aid  to 
all  measures  necessary  to  obtain  its  object. 

The  Convention  immediately  adopted  the  report.  On  the 
morning  of  the  next  day — the  ioth  of  July — this  body  "Resolved 
and  ordered,  that  the  style  and  title  of  this  House  be  changed 
from  that  of  the  'Provincial  Congress  of  the  Colony  of  New 
York,'  to  that  of  'The  Convention  of  the  Representatives  of  the 
State  of  New  York';"  and  thus  on  the  ioth  day  of  July,  1776, 
the  State  of  New  York  was  born.  In  the  afternoon  of  the  ioth, 
they  resolved  to  enter  on  the  16th  upon  the  formation  of  a  State 
government ;  but  by  that  time  the  situation  of  affairs  here  became 
too  alarming  for  deliberation.  Washington  was  contemplating 
the  abandonment  of  New  York.  British  ships  of  war  were 
anchored  off  Tarrytown,  within  six  miles  of  where  they  were 
sitting.  Their  whole  attention  was  occupied  in  raising  troops 
and  supplies,  and  providing  for  the  public  order.  On  the  16th 
they  postponed  the  question  till  the  1st  of  August.  In 
the  mean  while  they  provisionally  ordained  that  all  magis- 
trates and  civil  officers  well  affected  toward  independence  con- 
tinue the  exercise  of  their  duties  until  further  orders,  except 
that  all  processes  thereafter  must  issue  in  the  name  of  the  State 
of  New  York ;  and  declared  it  to  be  treason  and  punishable  with 
death  for  any  one  living  within  the  State  and  enjoying  the  pro- 
tection of  its  laws  to  adhere  to  the  cause  of  the  King  of  Great 
Britain  or  to  levy  war  against  the  State  in  his  behalf. 

With  dangers  threatening  on  every  hand,  the  British  fleet  in 


CENTENNIAL  OF  NEW  YORK  STATE  179 

possession  of  New  York  Bay,  the  Hudson  River,  and  Long  Island 
Sound,  a  veteran  army  in  overwhelming  numbers  but  a  few  miles 
distant,  thus  boldly  and  fearlessly  did  the  Representatives  of  New 
York  assert  her  sovereignty.  On  the  27th  of  July  the  Conven- 
tion found  it  necessary  to  remove  to  Harlem,  and  there,  on  the 
1st  of  August,  on  motion  of  Gouverneur  Morris,  and  seconded 
by  Mr.  Duer,  a  committee  was  appointed  to  prepare  and  report  a 
constitution  or  form  of  government. 

This  committee  was  composed  of  the  most  eminent  men  in 
the  Convention  and  in  the  Commonwealth.  For  a  generation 
after  independence  was  achieved  a  majority  of  them  continued 
to  receive,  in  positions  of  honor  and  trust,  the  highest  marks  of 
the  confidence  and  affection  of  their  countrymen.  Their  labors 
in  the  Cabinet  and  in  Congress,  in  the  State  Legislature  and  upon 
the  Bench,  and  in  the  Diplomatic  Service,  form  the  brightest 
pages  in  the  history  of  the  Nation  and  the  State. 

John  Jay  was  Chairman,  and  his  associates  were  Gouver- 
neur Morris,  Robert  R.  Livingston,  William  Duer,  Abraham  and 
Robert  Yates,  General  Scott,  Colonel  Broome,  Mr.  Hobart, 
Colonel  De  Witt,  Samuel  Townshend,  William  Smith,  and  Mr. 
Wisner.  The  committee  were  to  report  on  the  16th  of  August, 
1776;  but  such  was  the  perilous  condition  of  the  State,  and  so 
manifold  the  duties  of  the  members  of  the  Convention,  that  no 
report  was  made  till  March,  1777.  The  Convention  meanwhile, 
by  the  alarming  situation  of  affairs,  was  migrating  from  place 
to  place,  and  performing  every  class  of  public  duty.  It  was  a 
Committee  of  Public  Safety;  it  was  providing  the  ways  and 
means  to  continue  the  contest;  its  members  were  now  serving 
in  the  Continental  Congress,  and  again  with  the  army ;  they  were 
acting  as  judges  and  negotiators.  To-day  they  were  flying  be- 
fore the  enemy,  to-morrow  furnishing  protection  for  the  sorely 
pressed  Commonwealth.  At  one  time  meeting  at  Kingsbridge, 
then  at  Odell's  in  Phillips'  Manor,  then  at  Fishkill,  Poughkeepsie, 
and  finally  at  Kingston.  At  Fishkill  they  supplied  themselves  with 
arms  and  ammunition,  and  thereafter  legislated  with  their  swords 
by  their  sides — literally  building  the  peaceful  fabric  of  constitu- 
tional government  in  the  very  presence  of  the  alarms,  the  perils, 
and  the  carnage  of  war.  On  the  6th  of  March,  1777,  at  Kings- 
ton, the  committee  appointed  to  prepare  a  form  of  government 
were  required  to  report  on  the  following  Wednesday,  and  that 


180  ORATIONS   AND   MEMORIAL   ADDRESSES 

day,  the  12th,  the  committee  made  a  report  which  was  read  by 
Mr.  Duane. 

The  draft  was  drawn  by  John  Jay,  and  is  in  his  handwriting. 
This  draft  was  under  discussion  until  the  20th  of  April,  and 
underwent  some  amendments  and  additions.  The  leading  minds 
in  the  debates,  and  in  the  introduction  of  the  amendments  adopt- 
ed, were  John  Jay,  Gouverneur  Morris,  Robert  R.  Livingston, 
and  Mr.  Duane.  The  Constitution,  however,  was  finally  passed 
almost  as  it  came  from  the  hands  of  Mr.  Jay,  and  was  adopted 
with  one  dissenting  voice  on  the  20th  of  April,  1777.  It  was  the 
evening  of  Sunday;  the  President,  General  Ten  Broeck,  was 
absent,  and  also  the  Vice-President,  General  Pierre  Van  Cort- 
landt;  but  revolutions  know  neither  days,  nor  individuals.  Gen- 
eral Leonard  Gansevoort,  acting  as  President  pro  tern.,  attested 
the  document. 

The  same  night  Robert  R.  Livingston,  General  Scott,  Gouver- 
neur Morris,  Abraham  Yates,  John  Jay,  and  Mr.  Hobart  were 
appointed  a  committee  to  report  a  plan  for  organizing  and  es- 
tablishing the  form  of  government.  They  next  directed  one  of 
the  secretaries  to  proceed  immediately  to  Fishkill,  and  have  five 
hundred  copies  of  the  Constitution,  without  the  preamble,  and 
twenty-five  hundred  with  the  preamble,  printed,  and  instructed 
him  to  give  gratuities  to  the  workmen  to  have  it  executed  with 
dispatch.  They  then  resolved  that  the  Constitution  should  be 
published  on  the  next  Tuesday,  in  front  of  the  court-house,  at 
Kingston;  and  the  village  committee  were  notified  to  prepare 
for  the  event.  This  latter  body  seem  expeditiously  and  econo- 
mically to  have  performed  their  duty  by  erecting  a  platform 
upon  the  end  of  a  hogshead,  and  from  this,  Vice-President  Van 
Cortlandt  presiding,  Robert  Berrian,  one  of  the  secretaries, 
read  this  immortal  document  to  the  assembled  people.  The  Con- 
vention having  promulgated  their  ordinance  for  the  formation  of 
the  State  Government,  and  filled  up,  provisionally,  the  offices 
necessary  for  carrying  it  on  until  an  election  could  be  held,  and 
appointed  thirteen  of  their  number  to  act  as  a  Committee  of 
Safety  until  the  Legislature  should  assemble,  adjourned  sine  die 
on  the  13th  of  May,  1777.  Thus  passed  into  history  this  re- 
markable Convention.  In  lofty  patriotism,  steadfastness  of  pur- 
pose, practical  wisdom,  and  liberal  statesmanship,  it  had  few  if 
any,  equals,  even  among  the  legislative  bodies  of  extraordinary 


CENTENNIAL  OF  NEW  YORK  STATE  181 

merit  which  marked  the  era.  Its  address  to  the  people,  drafted 
by  Jay,  and  declared  by  Jefferson  the  ablest  document  of  the 
period,  is  a  most  compact  and  eloquent  statement  of  the  funda- 
mental principles  of  free  government,  and  was  republished  by 
Congress  for  the  whole  country,  and  translated  into  foreign 
tongues.  Of  the  many  distinguished  men  who  were  its  mem- 
bers three  stand  out  conspiciously,  and  form  an  unequaled  trium- 
virate of  social  distinction,  character,  culture,  and  intellect. 
They  were  John  Jay,  Gouverneur  Morris,  and  Robert  Livings- 
ton. All  young  men,  possessing  the  best  education  of  the  time, 
belonging  to  the  wealthiest  families  in  the  State,  by  birth  and 
opportunity  certain  of  royal  favor,  and  having  the  largest  stake 
in  loyalty  and  stable  government,  they  yet  risked  all,  and  periled 
their  lives  for  civil  liberty  and  self-government.  John  Jay  be- 
came Governor,  Cabinet  Minister,  Foreign  Envoy,  and  the  first 
Chief-Justice  of  the  United  States.  Gouverneur  Morris  distin- 
guished himself  in  the  councils  of  the  nation  and  the  diplomatic 
service  of  the  country.  Robert  R.  Livingston  rendered  the  most 
eminent  services  both  to  this  State  and  to  the  United  States,  and 
in  foreign  courts.  Their  examples,  efforts,  and  contributions  in 
educating  and  nerving  the  colonies  to  the  Declaration  of  Inde- 
pendence, in  the  events  which  led  to  the  recognition  of  the  Repub- 
lic, and  in  moulding  the  internal  regulations  and  foreign  policy 
of  the  new  Government,  are  the  special  pride  of  New  York  and 
the  glory  of  the  nation.  No  one  can  to-day  read  the  Constitution 
of  1777  without  wondering  how  little  we  have  been  able  to 
improve  upon  it  in  one  hundred  years.  When  we  consider  that 
purely  representative  government  was  then  an  almost  untried 
experiment,  this  instrument  becomes  more  and  more  an  enduring- 
monument  to  the  wisdom  and  foresight  of  its  framers.  It 
begins  with  a  preamble  setting  forth  the  causes  which  led  to  the 
formation  of  a  separate  government  and  the  authority  conferred 
upon  the  Convention  by  the  people  to  do  this  work.  It  recites 
at  length  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  and  the  unanimous 
resolution  of  the  Convention  on  the  9th  of  July,  1776,  indorsing 
the  Declaration  and  instructing  the  New  York  delegates  in  the 
Continental  Congress  to  give  it  their  support.  "By  virtue  of 
which  several  acts  and  recitals,"  says  the  preamble,  "all  power 
whatever  in  the  State  hath  reverted  to  the  people  thereof,  and  this 
Convention  hath,  by  their  suffrages  and  free  choice,  been  ap- 


182  ORATIONS   AND   MEMORIAL   ADDRESSES 

pointed  and  authorized  to  institute  and  establish  such  a  govern- 
ment as  they  shall  deem  best  calculated  to  secure  the  rights  and 
liberties  of  the  good  people  of  this  State." 

Its  first  section,  which  was  unanimously  agreed  to,  is  the 
keynote  of  its  spirit.  It  ordained,  determined,  and  declared  that 
no  authority,  on  any  pretense  whatever,  should  be  exercised  over 
the  people  or  members  of  this  State,  but  such  as  should  be  derived 
from  and  granted  by  the  people.  The  declarations  of  1683  were 
to  secure  for  British  colonists  every  liberty  granted  by  the  Crown 
to  the  British  subject.  The  purpose  of  the  men  of  1777  was  to 
substitute  the  popular  will  for  the  royal  prerogative,  and  natural 
rights  for  charters  wrung  from  the  reluctant  hands  of  hereditary 
power. 

Their  experience  with  the  colonial  Governors  had  made  them 
jealous  and  suspicious  of  individual  authority,  and  so,  to  prevent 
the  passage  of  laws  inconsistent  with  the  spirit  of  the  Constitution 
or  the  public  good,  they  placed  the  veto  power  in  the  hands  of  a 
council  of  revision,  consisting  of  the  Governor,  the  Chancellor, 
and  the  Judges  of  the  Supreme  Court.  All  bills  passed  by  the 
Legislature  were  to  be  submitted  to  them,  and  their  veto  was 
absolute,  unless  the  bill  was  repassed  by  two-thirds  of  each  House. 

It  followed  the  English  model  in  its  Legislature,  and  created 
two  bodies,  Senate  and  Assembly,  and  vested  in  them  all  legisla- 
tive power.  The  Senate,  twenty-four  in  number,  was  to  be 
elected  for  four  years  by  the  freeholders  of  their  districts  having 
freeholds  of  the  value  of  over  one  hundred  pounds,  and  the 
Assembly  of  seventy  members  for  one  year,  by  freeholders 
possessing  freeholds  of  the  value  of  twenty  pounds,  or  renting 
tenements  of  the  yearly  value  of  twenty  shillings  and  paying 
taxes.  Provision  was  made  for  increasing  both  branches,  but  the 
Senate  was  never  to  exceed  one  hundred,  or  the  Assembly  three 
hundred.  It  was  the  universal  belief  of  the  time  that  those  who 
paid  the  taxes  and  supported  the  Government  should  govern. 
Universal  suffrage  was  not  deemed  an  inherent  right,  but  a  privi- 
lege to  be  hedged  about  with  restrictions  and  limitations;  and 
while  we  have  enlarged  the  limit,  our  legislation  has  always  held 
to  the  theory,  until  recently,  as  to  people  of  color,  and  still  as  to 
women,  and  minors,  and  others.  It  was  the  change  of  sentiment 
on  this  great  question  which  led  to  the  Convention  and  new 
Constitution  of   1821.     The  executive  power  was  vested  in  a 


CENTENNIAL  OF  NEW  YORK  STATE  183 

governor  and  lieutenant-governor,  to  be  chosen  for  three  years, 
and  to  this  term  we  have  returned  by  an  amendment  adopted  in 
1874.  The  judicial  power  was  vested  in  a  chancellor,  and  judges 
of  the  Supreme  Court;  and  local  county  courts  and  a  probate 
judiciary  were  constituted;  and  they  respectively  held  during 
good  behavior,  and  until  sixty-five  years  of  age;  while  a  final 
appellate  court,  both  in  law  and  equity,  was  formed  by  the  Senate, 
the  Chancellor,  and  the  Judges  of  the  Supreme  Court.  Says  the 
most  eminent  authority  of  our  time :  "The  first  New  York  judi- 
ciary administered  public  justice  and  protected  private  rights,  dur- 
ing the  whole  period  of  its  existence,  in  a  manner  which  satisfied 
our  people  and  won  applause  from  all  disinterested  observers." 

The  appointing  power  was  vested  in  a  council  of  appointment, 
consisting  of  four  senators,  selected  annually  by  the  Assembly 
who,  with  the  Governor,  were  to  form  the  council.  To  this  body 
was  given  the  appointment  and  removal  of  all  officers  in  the  State, 
except  the  chancellor,  judges  of  the  Supreme  Court  and  first 
judges  of  counties.  As  the  State  increased  in  wealth  and  popu- 
lation the  power  and  patronage  of  this  council  became  enormous. 
It  controlled  the  politics  of  the  Commonwealth  for  forty  years, 
and  at  the  time  of  its  abolishment  had  within  its  gift  fifteen 
thousand  offices.  Such  parts  of  the  common  law  of  England 
and  the  statute  law  of  Great  Britain  and  the  colony  of  New  York, 
not  inconsistent  with  the  independence  of  the  State,  as  were  in 
force  on  the  19th  day  of  April,  1775,  were  declared  to  be  the 
law  of  New  York,  thus  deliberately  fixing  in  the  fundamental 
law  the  day  when  the  British  soldiers  fired  upon  the  patriots  at 
Lexington  as  the  close  forever  of  the  supremacy  of  British 
authority. 

The  manner  of  voting  was  the  subject  of  much  discussion  in 
the  Convention.  The  object  was  to  get  the  freest  and  most 
unbiased  expression  of  the  popular  will.  At  first  the  advocates 
of  the  viva  voce  vote  seem  to  have  had  the  majority ;  but  this  Con- 
vention was  wonderfully  free  from  prejudice,  or  pride  of  opinion, 
or  slavery  to  precedent.  As  stated  in  the  Constitution,  their 
object  was  to  do  that  which  best  "would  tend  to  preserve  the 
liberty  and  equal  freedom  of  the  people."  They  were  willing  to 
try  fairly  any  reasonable  experiment.  While  the  vote  by  ballot 
was  negatived  by  two-thirds,  a  compromise  was  adopted  by 
thirty-three  to  three,  ordaining  that,  after  the  termination  of  the 


184  ORATIONS   AND   MEMORIAL   ADDRESSES 

war,  the  Legislature  should  provide  for  all  elections  by  ballot, 
and  if  after  full  and  fair  trial,  it  was  found  less  conducive  to 
the  safety  and  interest  of  the  State,  the  viva  voce  practice  might 
be  restored.  In  1787  the  requisite  law  was  enacted  for  voting 
by  ballot,  and  that  method  has  continued  ever  since. 

The  question  of  religious  tolerance  excited  great  interest  and 
the  longest  debate.  By  personal  experience  and  family  tradition 
these  men  were  very  familiar  with  the  results  of  bigotry  and 
intolerance.  With  the  exception  of  Holland,  there  was  scarcely 
a  place  in  the  world  where  religious  freedom  was  permitted. 
John  Jay,  true  to  his  Huguenot  recollections  and  training,  threw 
the  weight  of  his  great  influence  and  ability  on  the  side  of  restric- 
tion. He  moved  to  "except  the  professors  of  the  religion  of  the 
Church  of  Rome  until  they  should  take  oath  that  they  verily 
believed  that  no  pope,  priest,  or  foreign  authority  hath  power  to 
absolve  the  subjects  of  the  State  from  allegiance,  and  unless  they 
renounce  the  false,  wicked,  and  damnable  doctrine  that  the  pope 
has  power  to  absolve  men  from  their  sins."  This  was  voted 
down  by  nineteen  to  ten,  and  it  was  then  moved  "that  this  tolera- 
tion shall  not  extend  to  justify  the  professors  of  any  religion  in 
disturbing  the  peace  or  violating  the  laws  of  this  State."  This 
too  was  rejected,  and  the  Convention,  to  their  immortal  honor 
and  glory,  established  liberty  of  conscience  in  these  memorable 
words :  "This  Convention  doth,  in  the  name  and  by  the  authority 
of  the  good  people  of  this  State,  ordain,  determine,  and  declare 
that  the  free  exercise  and  enjoyment  of  religious  profession  and 
worship,  without  discrimination  or  preference,  shall  forever  here- 
after be  allowed  within  this  State  to  all  mankind."  Thomas 
Jefferson  forced  a  like  expression  from  Virginia,  but  with  that 
exception,  New  York  alone  among  the  thirteen  States  began  its 
existence  with  absolute  and  untrammeled  religious  liberty.1 

The  Constitution  provided  for  the  naturalization  of  foreign- 
ers, for  trial  by  jury,  'for  a  militia  service  with  recognition  of  the 
Quakers,  and  for  the  protection  of  Indians  within  the  State  limits. 
Acts  of  attainder  were  prohibited;  no  person  was  to  be  disfran- 
chised, except  by  law  of  the  land  or  the  judgment  of  his  peers; 
freedom  of   debate   in   legislative  bodies   was   secured;   parties 

1Rhode  Island  established  religious  freedom  and  entire  liberty  of  conscience  in  her 
colonial  days.  In  1728  Roman  Catholics,  Jews,  Mohammedans,  and  Pagans  were  guaranteed 
liberty  of  conscience,  though  denied  political  rights;  and  in  1783  even  this  last  restriction 
was  removed. — Ed. 


CENTENNIAL  OF  NEW  YORK  STATE  185 

impeached  or  indicted  for  crimes  were  to  be  allowed  counsel  as  in 
civil  cases;  and  the  Legislature  were  prohibited  from  instituting 
any  court  except  such  as  should  proceed  according  to  the  course  of 
the  common  law. 

Pause  for  a  moment  and  reflect  upon  the  conditions  under 
which  this  Constitution  was  prepared  and  adopted.  Its  framers 
in  perpetual  peril  of  their  lives;  at  some  period  during  their 
deliberations,  every  county  in  the  State  invaded  by  the  enemy; 
devoting  most  of  their  time  to  the  public  defense  and  the  protec- 
tion of  their  families,  without  precedent  to  guide  them,  save  the 
English  model,  their  own  experience,  and  thoughtful  study  of  the 
principles  of  liberty.  "Our  Constitution,"  said  Mr.  Jay,  in  his 
letter  to  the  President  of  the  Convention,  "is  universally  ap- 
proved, even  in  New  England,  where  few  New  York  productions 
have  credit."  The  verdict  of  posterity  is  unanimous  and  em- 
phatic, that  it  deserves  a  high  place  among  the  few  immortal 
documents  which  attest  and  determine  the  progress  of  the  people, 
and  the  growth  and  defense  of  human  liberty.  Its  principal 
features  were  incorporated  into  the  Constitution  of  the  United 
States,  and  followed  by  a  majority  of  the  new  commonwealths, 
which  from  time  to  time  were  admitted  into  the  Union.  The 
men  whose  virtues  we  celebrate  here  to-day  did  not  build  better 
than  they  knew.  It  is  the  crowning  merit  of  their  work  that  if 
fulfilled  its  purpose.  The  peril  of  their  position  and  the  time, 
nearly  the  darkest  and  most  hopeless  of  the  Revolution,  so  puri- 
fied their  actions  and  intensified  their  thoughts  that  reason  became 
almost  prophecy.  The  brilliance  of  the  promise  is  equaled  by 
the  splendor  of  the  performance.  The  salient  principles  of  the 
old  Constitution  underlie  the  new;  and  every  present  effort  to 
abandon  other  experiments  and  restore  the  ancient  forms,  is  the 
best  tribute  posterity  can  pay  to  the  marvelous  wisdom  of  the 
members  of  our  first  State  Convention.  The  Constitution  of 
1777  remained  in  force  over  forty  years,  and  then  with  some 
minor  modifications,  as  the  extension  of  suffrage  and  the  concen- 
tration of  more  power  in  the  Governor,  it  continued  substantially 
unchanged  until  1846.  The  public  improvements  of  the  State,  its 
growth  in  population,  and  local  necessities,  demanded  some 
amendments ;  and  to  provide  for  the  public  debt,  to  limit  the  debt- 
contracting  power,  and  to  enlarge  the  judiciary,  the  Convention 
of   1846  was  called  together.     While  preserving  many  of  the 


186  ORATIONS   AND   MEMORIAL   ADDRESSES 

essential  features  of  the  old  Constitution,  this  Convention  made 
changes  which  radically  altered  our  scheme  of  State  administra- 
tion. The  Governor  was  stripped  of  nearly  all  power,  the 
authority  of  the  Legislature  was  restricted,  and  appoint- 
ments to  office  and  local  administration  given  directly  to  the 
people.  The  whole  civil  service,  which  for  seventy  years 
had  been  appointed  by  the  Council  of  Appointment  and  the 
Governor  and  Senate,  was  reduced  to  elective  offices.  The 
Judiciary,  which  had  been  selected  by  the  executive,  and  held  its 
place  during  good  behavior,  was  submitted  to  popular  nomina- 
tion and  election,  and  very  short  terms  of  service.  The  whole 
instrument  is  a  protest  against  the  concentration  of  power  in  any 
branch  of  the  government,  and  a  demand  for  its  surrender  at  the 
shortest  possible  intervals  by  the  executive,  the  legislative,  and 
the  judicial  officers,  back  again  to  the  people.  It  cut  up  and  sub- 
divided, for  the  election  of  the  Legislature,  the  large  districts, 
with  their  guarantee  of  larger  men  for  representatives,  and  made 
statesmanship  difficult  in  proportion  as  it  multiplied  the  oppor- 
tunities and  increased  the  influence  of  the  local  politician.  It  so 
widely  distributed  official  authority  and  responsibility  that  each 
soldier  of  a  vast  army  of  placemen  was  accountable  only  to  the 
hazards  of  a  re-election  at  the  end  of  a  brief  term,  and  the 
Governor  was  the  head  of  an  administration  beyond  the  reach  of 
appointment,  removal,  or  control  by  him.  The  wisdom  of  the 
revolution,  especially  in  the  Judiciary,  has  never  ceased  to  be 
doubted,  and  within  the  past  five  years,  by  duly  adopted  amend- 
ments, more  permanency  and  dignity  have  been  given  to  our 
higher  and  appellate  courts,  by  reorganizing  them  upon  a  more 
harmonious  basis,  with  more  symmetry  and  concentration,  and 
longer  terms  of  service.  The  tendency  of  recent  constitutional 
reform  has  been  to  old  methods  in  respect  to  the  executive,  both 
in  regard  to  his  length  of  service  and  general  powers,  and  happily 
to  drive  from  the  Legislature  special  legislation  for  the  benefit  of 
individuals,  corporations,  or  localities,  and  compel  the  enactment 
of  such  general  laws  as  will  bear  equally  in  both  grant  and  limita- 
tion upon  all,  giving  to  none  the  exclusive  benefits  and  franchises 
of  the  State.  But  the  methods  provided  by  the  Constitution  of 
1846  to  preserve  the  credit  of  New  York,  to  reform  and  simplify 
the  practice  and  codify  the  laws,  are  worthy  of  all  praise,  and 
have  been  adopted  by  many  of  the  other  States.     Let  us  hope 


CENTENNIAL  OF  NEW  YORK  STATE       187 

that  very  soon  our  fundamental  law  may  be  still  further  amended 
to  stop  the  increase  of  local  and  municipal  debt — the  source  and 
fountain  of  extravagance,  peculation,  and  fraud,  and  the  greatest 
curse  of  our  time.2 

This  brief  review  of  our  constitutional  history  leads  naturally 
to  an  inquiry  as  to  what  practical  results  have  been  obtained  by 
these  principles  and  plans  of  government.  The  first  election  for 
State  officers  and  members  of  the  Legislature  was  held  in  June, 
1777,  in  all  the  counties  not  in  possession  of  the  enemy,  by  the 
officers  appointed  by  the  Convention.  A  majority  of  the  Council 
of  Safety  sought  to  control  the  matter  by  nominating  Philip 
Schuyler  for  Governor,  and  George  Clinton  for  Lieutenant- 
governor.  As  Jay  said,  in  proclaiming  these  nominations :  "Our 
Constitution  is  universally  approved  and  does  honor  to  our  State. 
Let  us  not  lose  our  credit  in  committing  the  government  of  it 
to  men  inadequate  to  the  task.  These  gentlemen  are  respectable 
abroad;  their  attachment  to  the  cause  is  confessed,  and  their 
abilities  unquestionable.  Let  us  endeavor  to  be  as  unanimous 
as  possible."  Notwithstanding  this  powerful  nomination,  forty- 
one  candidates  ran,  13,179  votes  were  cast,  and  General  George 
Clinton  was  elected  both  Governor  and  Lieutenant-governor. 
He  resigned  the  latter  office,  and  General  Pierre  Van  Cortlandt, 
as  President  of  the -Senate,  became  Lieutenant-governor. 

The  newly-elected  Governor  was  cast  in  the  mould  of  the 
sternest  and  most  inflexible  patriotism.  The  highest  office  in 
the  gift  of  the  people  had  come  to  him  unsolicited,  but  he  hesi- 
tated long  before  accepting  it.  Regardless  of  personal  sacrifice 
or  ambition,  he  wanted  first  clearly  to  see  whether  his  duty  to  the 
cause  could  be  best  performed  in  the  field  or  the  executive  chair. 
The  Council  of  Safety,  restive  under  their  great  responsibilities, 
demanded  that  he  immediately  leave  his.  command  and  assume  the 
helm  of  state.  Washington  and  Putnam  advised  his  acceptance, 
and  among  the  expressions  of  opinion  from  all  quarters  the  Con- 
sistory of  the  Dutch  Reformed  Church,  at  Kingston,  addressed 
him  a  most  earnest  appeal  and  congratulation.  "From  the  be- 
ginning of  the  present  war,"  they  said,  "the  Consistory  and  people 
of  Kingston  have  uniformly  been  attached  to  the  cause  of 
America,  and  justify,  upon  the  soundest  principles  of  religion 
and  morality,  the  glorious  revolution  of  a  free  and  oppressed 

*  The  law  has  since  been  so  amended. — Ed. 


188  ORATIONS   AND   MEMORIAL   ADDRESSES 

country.  Take,  then,  with  the  acclamation  and  fullest  confidence 
of  the  public — take,  sir,  the  Government  into  your  hands,  and  let 
the  unsolicited  voice  of  the  whole  State  prevail  upon  you  to  enter 
upon  this  arduous  task.  The  Consistory  esteem  themselves 
especially  happy  in  having  cause  to  believe  that  religious  liberty, 
without  which  all  other  privileges  are  not  worth  enjoying,  will 
be  strenuously  supported  by  your  Excellency." 

He  yielded  his  own  judgment  to  the  universal  anxiety,  and 
the  30th  of  July,  1777,  was  fixed  for  the  inauguration.  And  so, 
one  hundred  years  ago  to-day,  upon  this  spot,  the  Council  of 
Safety  surrendered  its  powers,  General  George  Clinton  was 
inaugurated  Governor,  and  the  State  of  New  York,  under  a 
constitution  and  duly  organized  government,  began  its  history. 
He  came  from  the  very  presence  of  the  enemy  to  assume  the  robes 
of  office,  to  return  to  his  post  when  the  ceremony  was  over;  and 
the  proclamation  which  made  him  Governor,  General  and  Com- 
mander of  the  Militia,  and  Admiral  of  the  Navy  of  the  State, 
was  the  first  state  paper  bearing  the  startling  attest  "God  save 
the  People."  Forts  Clinton  and  Montgomery  were  attacked  in 
the  Highlands,  Herkimer  was  battling  in  the  Valley  of  the  Mo- 
hawk, Burgoyne  was  marching  from  the  north,  and  it  was  months 
before  he  could  summon  from  the  field  and  gather  in  council  the 
first  Legislature. 

New  York  had  but  two  hundred  thousand  people ;  was  with- 
out manufactories  or  internal  improvements;  and  was  hemmed 
in  and  invaded  on  every  side  by  hostile  fleets  and  armies.  One 
hundred  years  have  passed,  and  to-day  in  the  sisterhood  of  States, 
she  is  the  Empire  in  all  that  constitutes  a  great  commonwealth. 
An  industrious,  intelligent,  and  prosperous  population  of  five 
millions  of  people  live  within  her  borders.  In  the  value  of  her 
farms  and  farm  products,  and  in  her  manufacturing  industries, 
she  is  the  first  State  in  the  Union.  She  sustains  over  one 
thousand  newspapers  and  periodicals,  has  eighty  millions  invested 
in  church  property,  and  spends  twelve  millions  of  dollars  a  year 
upon  popular  education.  Upward  of  three  hundred  academies 
and  colleges  fit  her  youth  for  special  professions  and  furnish 
opportunities  for  liberal  learning  and  the  highest  culture,  and 
stately  edifices  all  over  the  State,  dedicated  to  humane  and  benevo- 
lent objects,  exhibit  the  permanence  and  extent  of  her  organized 
charities.     There  are  three  hundred  millions  of  dollars  in  her 


CENTENNIAL  OF  NEW  YORK  STATE  189 

savings  banks,  three  hundred  millions  in  her  insurance  companies, 
and  five  hundred  millions  in  the  capital  and  loans  of  her  State 
and  National  Banks.  Six  thousand  miles  of  railroads,  costing 
six  hundred  millions  of  dollars,  have  penetrated  and  developed 
every  accessible  corner  of  the  State,  and  maintain  against  all 
rivalry  and  competition  her  commercial  prestige. 

In  1825  a  cannon  was  fired  upon  the  Battery  in  New  York 
City,  in  response  to  the  reverberations  of  the  guns  from  Sandy 
Hook;  its  echoes  were  caught  and  repeated  by  another  shot  at 
the  Palisades;  and  so  from  Tappan  Zee  to  the  Highlands,  along 
the  Catskills  and  the  valley  of  the  Mohawk,  and  past  the  falls  of 
the  Genesee  till  lost  over  the  lake  at  Buffalo,  the  thunders  of 
artillery  announced,  in  one  hour  and  twenty  minutes,  the  whole 
length  of  the  State,  that  the  waters  of  the  lake  had  been  wedded 
to  the  ocean,  and  the  Erie  Canal  was  completed.  It  marked  a 
new  era  in  the  prosperity  of  the  State  and  the  history  of  the 
Nation.  It  sent  the  tide  of  emigration  to  the  Northwest,  devel- 
oping there  great  agricultural  States,  and  added  immensely  to 
the  wealth  of  New  York.  All  honor  and  gratitude  to  the  men 
who  at  that  early  day  had  the  courage  and  foresight  to  plan  and 
pursue  these  great  public  improvements,  and  whose  wisdom  has 
been  proven  by  a  repetition  of  the  lessons  of  the  ages,  that  along 
the  highways  of  commerce  reside  population,  wealth,  civilization, 
and  power.  The  glory  of  each  State  is  the  common  property  of 
the  Nation,  and  we  make  this  day  our  centennial  exhibit.  Our 
inquiry  has  shown  that  we  need  not  step  beyond  our  own  bounda- 
ries to  find  illustrious  annals  and  noble  examples.  We  are  rich 
in  battle-fields,  decisive  in  results  upon  the  freedom  of  the  Nation. 

Jay,  Morris,  and  Livingston,  Schuyler  and  Montgomery,  Clin- 
ton and  Herkimer,  Hamilton  and  Kent,  are  names  which  will 
live  among  the  soldiers,  patriots,  and  sages  of  all  time.  In 
every  crisis  of  its  history,  the  virtue,  courage,  and  wisdom  of  the 
people  have  been  equal  to  the  needs  of  the  present  and  the  wants 
of  the  future. 

Let  us  welcome  the  second  century  and  enter  upon  its  duties 
with  the  stern  purpose  and  high  resolve  to  maintain  the  standard 
of  our  fathers  in  the  public  and  private  life  of  the  State,  and  the 
honorable  superiority  of  New  York  in  the  Federal  Union. 


CENTENNIAL  OF   CAPITAL  AT  ALBANY 


ADDRESS  AT  THE  CELEBRATION  OF  THE  CENTENNIAL  OF  THE 
ESTABLISHMENT  OF  THE  STATE  CAPITAL  AT  ALBANY,  JANU- 
ARY 6,  1897. 

One  summer  morning  at  Athens  I  stood  upon  the  Acropolis. 
Before  me  were  the  temples  of  her  religion,  the  seats  of  her 
famed  Court  of  Justice,  and  the  field  where  her  popular  Assembly 
deliberated  and  enacted  laws.  Memory  swiftly  reviewed  the 
inspiring  past.  Names  which  have  survived  the  centuries  and 
made  immortal  Grecian  art,  letters,  eloquence,  and  arms  were 
materialized  by  the  imagination.  Then  again  I  was  in  the  Forum 
at  Rome.  Around  me  once  more  were  the  rehabilitated  ruins 
and  the  reincarnated  heroes,  statesmen,  and  orators  of  the  Augus- 
tan Age.  From  the  rostrum  on  which  Cicero,  by  his  appeals 
to  the  populace,  had  delayed  the  destruction  of  the  Republic,  and 
Marc  Antony,  by  his  eulogium  over  the  dead  body  of  Caesar,  had 
changed  the  course  of  empire  and  the  history  of  the  world,  I  saw 
before  me  the  Senate  House,  from  which  issued  the  decrees  that 
conquered  kingdoms,  devastated  provinces,  slaughtered  millions 
of  human  beings,  and  concentrated  in  the  Eternal  City  the  gov- 
ernment of  the  world.  It  at  once  became  an  acute  speculation 
whether  it  is  religion  with  its  creeds  and  dogmas,  or  literature,  or 
art,  or  material  development,  or  military  achievement,  or  govern- 
ment, which  most  interests  and  absorbs  the  attention  of  mankind. 

"The  noblest  study  of  mankind  is  man"  and  how  he  is 
governed  or  governs  himself.  Upon  the  institution  adopted  by 
the  nations  depend  all  the  other  elements  which  I  have  recited. 
It  is  the  government  of  the  people  that  determines  the  measure 
of  their  civilization,  the  expansion  of  their  liberties,  the  genius  of 
their  art,  the  liberality  of  their  letters,  and  the  toleration  of  their 
religion.  Power  captures  both  reason  and  imagination,  whether 
it  is  concentrated  in  an  autocrat  or  distributed  among  oligarchies 
or  aristocracies,  or  finds  its  seat  among  the  people.  It  is  the  life 
of  national  existence.  The  story  of  its  development,  its  use  and 
its  abuse,  is  the  history  of  the  past.  We  contemplate  it  to-day, 
not  in  its  tragedies  enacted  by  conquerors  and  armies,  not  in 

190 


CENTENNIAL  OF  CAPITAL  AT  ALBANY  191 

sacked  cities  and  devastated  provinces,  not  in  subdued  and  humili- 
ated nations,  but  in  the  wise,  peaceful,  and  beneficent  development 
of  government  for  the  people  and  by  the  people. 

We  can  not  look  back  over  an  eventful  past,  like  that  suggested 
by  the  dead  republics  of  ancient  times  or  the  living  governments 
of  the  older  countries  of  Europe.  The  span  of  one  hundred  years 
is  but  a  day  of  history.  That  day,  like  one  of  the  decisive  battles 
which  has  changed  the  course  of  empire,  may  be  more  fruitful  and 
suggestive  than  a  thousand  years  of  Cathay. 

Each  of  the  thirteen  colonies  has  pride  and  applause,  because 
of  the  contributions  it  has  made  to  the  formation  of  the  Republic 
of  the  United  States.  We  can  not  dispute  nor  detract  from  the 
just  merits  of  any  of  our  sister  States,  but  this  is  our  hour,  our 
privilege,  our  time  to  place  New  York  in  her  entitled  imperial 
position  at  the  beginning  of  the  century,  a  position  she  still  holds 
at  its  close.  New  York  is  the  only  one  of  the  colonies  which 
could  have  successfully  sustained  a  separate  and  independent 
existence.  Nature  has  made  her  the  seat  of  empire.  The  possi- 
bilities of  power  are  both  in  the  topography  of  a  country  and 
the  characteristics  of  its  inhabitants.  The  Hudson  river,  running 
in  its  majestic  course  as  a  highway  for  commerce  from  the  At- 
lantic to  the  Mohawk,  presented  the  easy  and  natural  route  for 
settlement  and  trade.  From  the  headwaters  of  the  Mohawk  the 
streams  run  northward  to  Lake  Ontario,  and  the  valley  extends 
west  to  Lake  Erie.  With  short  and  easy  portages  the  Indian, 
with  his  birch-bark  canoe,  could  have  gone  from  New  York  to 
the  Pacific  Coast.  The  canoe  is  succeeded  by  the  laboring  oar, 
the  oar  by  the  canal  boat  and  the  horse,  the  canal  boat  by  the 
steam  engine,  and  then,  in  the  development  of  transportation,  the 
iron  rail  finds  its  easy  grades  beside  the  water  courses  and  fol- 
lows their  banks.  Thus  our  State,  from  the  beginning,  has  held 
the  key  to  the  settlement  of  the  continent  and  the  gates  for  the 
inflow  of  population  and  importation  and  for  the  carriage  to 
market  and  export  of  the  product  of  the  great  majority  of  the 
acres  of  our  vast  national  territory. 

One  of  the  picturesque  episodes,  lost  almost  in  the  byways  of 
history,  is  found  in  the  brief  annals  we  possess  of  the  federation 
of  the  Iroquois.  By  their  location  in  the  valley  of  the  Mohawk, 
they  demonstrated  in  their  rude  and  savage  way  that  the  course 
of  empire  lies  along  the  natural  highways  of  commerce  and  trade. 


192  ORATIONS   AND   MEMORIAL   ADDRESSES 

Though  having  only  five  thousand  warriors,  they  exacted  tribute 
from  subject  tribes  throughout  New  England  as  far  north  as 
Maine,  to  the  west  as  far  as  the  Mississippi,  and  south  to  the 
borders  of  the  Gulf  of  Mexico.  Their  enemies  were  divided  by 
mountain  ranges  and  other  natural  barriers,  which  prevented 
union  for  common  defence,  while  these  rude  soldiers  of  the  forest 
could  concentrate  down  the  valleys  and  streams  for  the  swift 
punishment  of  revolt  or  collection  of  tribute.  These  sagacious 
savages  knew  nothing  of  the  secret  of  Roman  conquest,  but  they 
adopted  its  tactics  in  war  and  its  policy  in  peace.  They  incorpo- 
rated the  subject  tribes  and  used  them  to  extend  the  area  of  their 
influence.  An  early  chronicler  says  that  the  appearance  of  a 
single  Mohawk  among  the  Indians  of  Massachusetts  would  put 
a  tribe  to  flight.  The  decision,  followed  by  instant  execution, 
which  is  the  secret  of  successful  force,  was  illustrated  when  a 
Long  Island  tribe  ceded  a  portion  of  its  lands  to  the  whites  with- 
out the  consent  of  the  Six  Nations.  The  tribal  congress  at 
Onondaga  determined  to  stop  at  once  any  such  encouragement 
to  white  encroachments  upon  Indian  territory.  A  single  Mohawk 
warrior  carried  the  message.  He  appeared  at  the  village  of  the 
Long  Island  tribe,  called  together  its  chiefs,  and  demanded  by 
whose  authority  this  deed  was  given.  The  head  of  the  tribe 
arose  and  said  it  had  been  done  by  him.  The  messenger  of 
power  and  vengeance  at  once  buried  his  tomahawk  in  the  brain 
of  the  chief,  attached  his  scalp  to  his  girdle,  and  walked  out  of 
the  terrified  and  submissive  assembly. 

New  York,  thus  fortunate  in  her  geographical  position,  was 
doubly  fortunate  in  the  character  of  the  immigration  which  she 
attracted.  She  became  the  cosmopolitan  State  of  the  Union. 
The  Dutch  came  and  took  possession  of  the  territory  and  adminis- 
tered its  government.  They  gave  to  its  constitution  and  laws 
the  spirit  of  civil  and  religious  liberty  which  existed  in  that  age 
only  in  Holland.  They  invited  all  nationalities  and  all  creeds  to 
equal  rights  with  themselves.  Persecuted  religionists  of  every 
church  soon  discovered  that  they  could  find  a  hospitable  home 
among  the  Dutch  of  New  York.  The  Waldenses  settled  upon 
Staten  Island,  the  Walloons  and  the  English  upon  Long  Island; 
the  Catholic  Scotch  Highlanders,  who  had  followed  the  fortunes 
of  Prince  Charlie,  established  their  colony  in  Montgomery  Coun- 
ty, while  the  Protestant  Irish  took  up  farms  in  Otsego  and  the 


CENTENNIAL  OF  CAPITAL  AT  ALBANY  193 

Catholic  French  along  the  borders  of  Canada;  the  Welsh  formed 
settlements  in  Oneida,  the  Huguenots  established  prosperous 
communities  in  Westchester  and  along  the  Hudson,  and  the  Ger- 
mans from  the  Palatinate  gave  character  and  stability  to  the  farms 
and  villages  on  the  Mohawk.  Hamilton,  the  constructive  genius 
of  the  Republic,  was  Scotch,  as  was  also  Livingston.  Schuyler, 
the  modest  but  able  general  who  planned  the  battle  of  Saratoga, 
was  Dutch;  Herkimer,  whose  brave  fight  at  Oriskany  was  one 
of  the  most  eventful  battles  of  the  Revolution,  was  German.  The 
accomplished  and  cultured  jurist  and  patriot,  Jay,  was  a  French 
Huguenot.  The  sturdy  and  tough  old  Governor  Clinton,  who 
ruled  our  State  for  twenty-one  years,  was  Irish;  while  Morris 
was  Welsh,  and  Hoffman  of  Swedish  descent. 

With  patriotic  ardor  and  brilliant  effort  in  eloquence,  in  story 
and  in  song,  the  descendants  of  the  Puritans  have  celebrated  the 
virtues  of  their  forefathers  and  made  us  familiar  with  the 
minutest  details  of  the  lives  and  deeds  of  these  early  State  build- 
ers. Bunker  Hill  and  Concord  and  Lexington  are  the  inspiration 
of  the  schoolbooks,  while  Saratoga,  the  decisive  battle  of  the 
Revolutionary  War,  and  Oriskany,  are  second  in  importance, 
and  White  Plains,  Stony  Point,  West  Point,  and  Crown  Point, 
are  little  known,  except  to  the  students  of  the  Revolution.  The 
genius  of  the  father  of  American  literature  painted  a  word- 
picture  of  the  ridiculous  side  of  the  founders  of  New  Amster- 
dam, which  has  detracted  in  the  mind  and  imagination  of  subse- 
quent generations,  from  the  merits  of  these  builders  of  our  State 
and  its  institutions,  and  placed  them  at  incalculable  disadvantage 
beside  the  idealized  Pilgrim.  One  might  as  well  judge  Welling- 
ton and  Waterloo,  Marlborough  and  Blenheim,  Nelson  and  the 
Victory,  and  Chatham  and  Burke,  by  the  satirical  cartoons  of 
Punch,  as  to  form  an  opinion  of  the  Dutch  of  New  York  by 
"Knickerbocker's  History." 

The  people  of  Holland  had  carried  on  an  unexampled  struggle 
for  eighty  years  for  independence  against  the  great  power  of 
Spain.  They  had  demonstrated,  in  an  age  of  tyranny  and 
bigotry,  the  liberalizing  force  and  resistless  power  of  commerce 
and  industry.  The  merchants,  the  manufacturers,  and  the  arti- 
sans of  their  cities  had  accumulated  wealth,  broken  the  power  of 
their  feudal  lords  and  cultivated  art,  literature,  and  liberty ;  they 
had  celebrated  their  victories,  not  by  monuments,  but  by  univer- 
Vol.  1-13 


194  ORATIONS   AND   MEMORIAL   ADDRESSES 

sides;  they  had  kept  alive  the  spark  of  liberty  and  of  learning 
when  it  was  dead  everywhere  else;  they  had  formed  a  federal 
union  in  1579,  which  was  the  model  for  the  confederation  of  the 
American  colonies,  and  in  1580  they  had  formulated  a  declara- 
tion of  independence,  which  was  one  of  the  inspirations  of  the 
pen  of  Jefferson.  They  received  with  cordiality,  and  entertained 
with  hospitality,  Protestants  and  Catholics,  and  the  persecuted 
Jews.  They  had  taught  the  Puritan  the  lessons  of  civil  and 
religious  liberty,  and  the  benefits  of  the  common  schools.  It  is 
the  most  interesting  illustration  of  the  value  of  the  lesson  of  the 
eleven  years  which  the  Puritans  passed  in  Holland  that  the  Pil- 
grims, who  sailed  from  Delfthaven  to  Plymouth  and  framed  in 
the  cabin  of  the  Mayflower  that  immortal  charter  which  is  the 
foundation-stone  of  our  Republic,  preached  and  practised  both 
civil  and  religious  liberty.  It  was  the  Puritans  who  came  after- 
ward direct  from  England  who,  against  the  protests  of  the  Ply- 
mouth colony,  persecuted  Quakers  and  Baptists  and  hanged 
witches.  Said  the  Holland  Directors  to  the  Dutch  Governor  of 
New  Amsterdam,  in  directing  him  to  grant  home  and  hospitality 
to  the  persecuted  religionists  and  those  accused  of  witchcraft  who 
had  fled  from  New  England,  "Let  every  one  remain  free  as  long 
as  he  is  modest,  moderate,  his  political  conduct  irreproachable, 
and  as  long  as  he  does  not  offend  others  or  oppose  the  govern- 
ment. This  maxim  of  moderation  has  always  been  the  guide  of 
our  magistrates  in  Amsterdam,  and  the  consequence  has  been 
that  people  have  flocked  from  every  land  to  this  asylum.  Tread, 
then,  in  their  steps,  and  we  doubt  not  you  will  be  blessed."  The 
Dutch  maxims  of  government  were,  "Unity  makes  right,"  and 
"Taxation  is  only  lawful  by  consent  of  the  people."  These  prin- 
ciples of  our  Dutch  founders  bore  abundant  fruit  in  the  influence 
of  New  York  upon  the  political  and  constitutional  history  of  the 
Republic,  in  the  influence  of  New  York  upon  the  building  and 
expanding  of  the  common  school  and  the  universal  adoption  of 
the  principle  of  religious  toleration. 

The  commingling  of  races  in  our  commonwealth  is  one  of  the 
sources  of  its  imperial  position.  It  has  abolished  narrowness 
and  provincialism  and  created  broadness  and  liberality  of  charac- 
ter. It  has  done  more  than  anything  else  to  develop  the  Ameri- 
can type  of  manhood.  The  true  American  is  cosmopolitan.  He 
breathes  the  air  of  a  continent  ruled  by  the  flag  of  his  country; 


CENTENNIAL  OF  CAPITAL  AT  ALBANY  195 

he  lives  under  institutions  which  give  the  largest  liberty  and  the 
greatest  opportunity  for  individual  effort.  He  is  in  touch  with 
the  most  marvelous  material  development  of  any  age  or  any 
country,  and  is  carried  upon  the  car  of  progress  at  a  speed  which 
fires  the  brain,  makes  sentient  the  nerves,  and  gives  new  impulse 
to  the  blood.  He  cannot  help  being  patriotic  and  proud,  but  the 
sources  of  his  patriotism  are  so  sure  and  the  reasons  for  his  pride 
so  sound  that  he  can  be  liberal,  and  just  and  charitable  to  all 
nations,  races,  and  tongues.  His  sympathy  is  quick  and  out- 
spoken for  people  under  other  forms  of  government  who  are 
seeking  equality  before  the  law  and  struggling  for  civil  or  re- 
ligious liberty.  He  will  give  moral  support  to  and  assist  to  the 
limit  of  personal  safety  those  who  are  in  rebellion  against  tyranny 
and  oppression.  Antiquity  has  for  him  precious  lessons,  and  he 
studies  with  deep  appreciation,  pleasure,  and  admiration  the  art 
and  literature,  the  architecture  and  monuments,  the  heroes  and 
historic  fields  of  the  Old  World.  But  the  superiority  of  other 
lands  in  some  feature  of  civilization  only  intensifies  his  love  for 
his  own  country.  As  his  vision  broadens  he  sees  more  clearly 
that  we  are  "The  heirs  of  all  the  ages  in  the  foremost  files  of 
time,"  in  the  larger  share  of  freedom  and  happiness  enjoyed  by 
the  people  of  the  United  States. 

Our  State  was  pre-eminently  the  battleground  of  the  Revolu- 
tion. Here  in  Albany  was  assembled  in  1754,  twenty-two  years 
before  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  a  convention  presided 
over  by  Benjamin  Franklin,  to  promote  the  union  of  the  colonies 
for  mutual  improvement  and  self-defence.  In  1764  the  Colonial 
Assembly  of  New  York  addressed  the  other  colonies,  urging 
common  action  against  the  encroachments  of  the  mother  country. 
It  was  the  beginning  of  official  agitation  for  an  American  union 
and  the  promotion  of  purely  American  interests,  and  it  preceded 
by  a  year  Patrick  Henry's  famous  resolution  and  immortal  speech 
in  the  Virginia  House  of  Delegates.  John  Morin  Scott,  in  May, 
1765,  voiced  the  sentiment  of  the  New  York  Assembly  and  the 
popular  feeling  of  the  colony  with  his  bold  assertion,  which  was 
the  first  intimation  of  the  separation  of  the  colonies  from  the 
mother  country  and  their  independence  as  a  nation.  He  said: 
"The  English  government  cannot  long  act  towards  a  part  of  its 
dominions  upon  principles  which  are  diametrically  opposed  to  its 
own  without  losing  itself  in  the  slavery  it  would  impose  upon 


196  ORATIONS   AND   MEMORIAL  ADDRESSES 

the  colonies  or  teaching  them  to  throw  it  off  and  assert  their 
freedom."  In  that  speech  is  the  prophecy  of  nationality  and  the 
germ  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence.  Both  Washington  on 
the  one  side,  and  the  British  generals  on  the  other,  saw  that  New 
York  was  the  key  to  the  revolutionary  situation.  The  great 
campaign  of  the  British  Cabinet,  planned  with  so  much  skill  and 
strategical  genius,  would,  if  it  had  been  successful,  have  dis- 
couraged France  and  crushed  colonial  independence.  Through 
the  valleys  of  New  York,  at  once  the  highways  of  peaceful  and 
military  conquest,  the  English  general  was  to  march  his  armies, 
seize  and  hold  these  arteries,  and  divide  and  conquer  the  patriots. 
Sir  Henry  Clinton  was  to  come  up  the  Hudson,  and  Burgoyne, 
with  his  English  and  German  veterans,  was  to  move  down 
through  Lake  Champlain,  while  St.  Leger  came  along  the  valley 
of  the  Mohawk.  But  the  battle  of  Saratoga  and  the  sanguinary 
struggle  at  Oriskany  broke  the  power  of  Great  Britain  upon 
this  continent,  won  the  alliance  with  France,  secured  the  inde- 
pendence of  the  colonies,  and  created  the  Republic  of  the  United 
States. 

The  seat  of  government  in  our  State  during  the  period  of 
Dutch  and  English  control  was  in  New  Amsterdam,  now  New 
York  city.  The  executive  and  legislative  power  was  vested  in 
a  director-general  appointed  from  Holland  and  a  council  elected 
by  the  people.  After  the  English  conquest  this  was  changed  to 
a  royal  governor  appointed  by  the  King  of  Great  Britain,  and  an 
elective  assembly.  When  the  revolt  against  the  tyrannical  exac- 
tions of  the  mother  country  assumed  organized  form,  the  Com- 
mittee of  Safety,  provisional  war  committees,  and  committees  of 
resistance  called  a  Provisional  Congress,  to  be  elected  by  the 
various  counties.  This  Congress,  in  May,  1776,  provided  for 
the  election  of  delegates  to  a  convention  "to  accept  and  establish 
such  a  government  as  they  shall  deem  best  calculated  to  secure 
the  life,  liberty,  and  happiness  of  the  good  people  of  this  colony." 
Our  first  Constitution  was  framed  and  adopted  by  this  body  at 
Kingston,  on  April  20,  1777,  and  the  legislative  life  of  the  State 
of  New  York  began.  The  Constitution  created  a  Senate  and 
Assembly,  and  enacted  that  the  Legislature  must  meet  once  a 
year,  but  failed  to  name  any  place.  At  its  first  session  the  Legis- 
lature, in  1778,  passed  an  act  to  regulate  elections  within  the 
State,  and  providing  that  the  Senate  and  Assembly  should  meet 


CENTENNIAL  OF  CAPITAL  AT  ALBANY  197 

on  the  first  Monday  in  July  in  each  year  at  such  place  or  places 
as  the  Governor,  by  proclamation,  should  appoint,  reserving  to 
the  Legislature  the  right  to  adjourn  to  any  place  it  chose.  These 
provisions  were  necessary,  because  our  State  was  a  continuous 
battleground  during  the  whole  of  the  Revolutionary  War,  and  the 
Legislature,  of  necessity,  deliberated  in  light  marching  order,  and 
was  in  constant  peril  of  capture  by  the  enemy.  It  met  at  Kings- 
ton and  Poughkeepsie  in  1777;  at  Poughkeepsie  in  1778;  at 
Albany,  Kingston,  and  Poughkeepsie  in  1779;  at  the  same  places 
in  1780;  at  Albany  and  Poughkeepsie  in  1781 ;  at  Poughkeepsie 
in  1782;  at  Kingston  also  in  1782,  and  in  1783,  1784,  1785,  and 
1 786 ;  at  New  York  in  1 787 ;  at  Poughkeepsie  in  1 788 ;  at  Albany 
in  1789.  It  met  alternately  afterwards  at  New  York  and  Albany, 
and  in  1797,  just  one  hundred  years  ago,  found  its  permanent 
home  in  this  city.  Its  sessions  in  this  city  had  no  other  authority, 
until  1 8 18,  than  the  annual  motion  "That  when  the  Legislature 
adjourns  it  shall  be  to  meet  at  Albany."  In  181 8  an  act  was 
passed  changing  the  date  for  the  assembling  of  the  Legislature  to 
the  first  Tuesday  in  January,  and  providing  that  its  future  meet- 
ings should  be  held  in  "the  Capitol  in  the  city  of  Albany."  The 
first  building  stood  where  Agricultural  Hall  now  is,  and  was  used 
jointly  by  the  city  and  State.  The  next  structure,  the  old  "Capi- 
tol," so  freighted  with  glorious  memories,  was  completed  and 
occupied  in  1809.  It  was  built  by  the  State  and  the  city,  the 
latter  being  authorized  to  raise  its  money  by  a  lottery.  The 
whole  scheme  was  imbedded  in  laws  under  the  liberal  titles  per- 
mitted by  our  earlier  constitutions  of  "Acts  to  improve  the  navi- 
gation of  the  Hudson  river  between  the  villages  of  Troy  and 
Waterford,  and  for  the  encouragement  of  literature."  The 
building  was  finished  in  three  years,  at  a  cost  of  $110,685.42. 
Professor  Silliman,  of  Yale  College,  spoke  of  this  building  in 
1 81 3  as  "a  large,  handsome  building  exhibiting  a  good  degree  of 
splendor."  Horatio  Gates  Spofford  said,  in  1823,  that  "in  the 
furniture  of  the  Senate  and  Assembly  Chambers  there  is  a  liberal 
display  of  public  munificence,  and  the  American  eagle  assumes  an 
imperial  splendor."  Such  were  the  impressions  made  on  these 
cultured  and  keen  observers  seventy-three  years  ago  by  that  plain 
and  poorly  equipped  old  house.  It  marks  the  growth  of  taste 
and  luxury  that  no  more  could  be  said  of  the  palatial  magnificence 
and  gorgeous  appointments  of  the  present  Capitol.     Its  corner- 


198  ORATIONS  AND  MEMORIAL  ADDRESSES 

stone  was  laid  in  1871,  with  imposing  ceremonies,  and  the  Legis- 
lature moved  in  on  January  7,  1879.  This  largest  and  grandest 
of  state  capitols,  and  one  of  the  greatest  structures  of  its  kind 
in  the  world,  has  cost,  up  to  1896,  $21,607,116.58,  and  it  will 
require  several  more  millions  for  its  completion. 

Commerce  stimulates  invention  and  compels  the  enlargement 
of  the  facilities  for  and  the  cheapening  of  transportation.  The 
carrier  is  both  the  creator  and  the  distributor  of  national  and 
individual  wealth.  Mountain  ranges  have  shut  off  the  limitless, 
fertile,  and  attractive  territories  of  the  West  from  the  Atlantic 
seaboard,  except  where  nature  has  made  a  natural  highway 
through  the  lakes  to  Buffalo  and  down  the  valleys  to  the  Hudson, 
and  through  the  lakes  again  down  to  Oswego  and  down  the 
streams  to  the  Hudson.  The  brilliant  Gouverneur  Morris  had 
seen  the  ease  with  which  Lakes  Erie  and  Ontario  could  be  con- 
nected with  the  Atlantic,  through  the  natural  channels.  Other 
statesmen  of  New  York  had  impressed  the  work  upon  the  State 
Legislature  and  upon  Congress,  but  it  was  reserved  for  the  prac- 
tical ability,  the  popularity,  and  the  indomitable  energy  of  Gov- 
ernor DeWitt  Clinton  to  carry  through  the  projects  of  the  Erie, 
the  Oswego,  and  the  Champlain  canals.  The  wedding  of  the 
waters  of  Lake  Erie  with  the  waters  of  the  Bay  of  New  York 
created  that  system  of  northwestern  commonwealths  in  which 
now  reside  the  political  power  and  the  future  growth  of  our 
Republic.  Navigation  carried  population  along  the  lakes,  the 
canals,  and  the  rivers,  and  prosperous  settlements  existed 
wherever  the  product  of  the  soil  could  be  carried  cheaply  to 
market.  The  discovery  that  every  mile  of  railroad  constructed 
in  new  territory  opens  to  cultivation  and  for  homes  one  hundred 
thousand  acres  of  virgin  soil,  caused  to  be  built  that  system  of 
railways  which  now  numbers  in  miles  quite  one-half  of  the  total 
mileage  of  all  the  railways  in  the  world,  and  the  vast  internal 
commerce  which  it  carries  far  surpasses  the  combined  traffic  of 
the  railways  of  other  countries  and  of  the  merchant  vessels  on 
the  ocean.  It  was  the  prospect  of  a  peaceful  settlement  and 
development  of  the  vast  interior  of  our  country  which  caused 
Livingston  and  Fulton  to  build  the  first  steamboat  upon  the 
Hudson,  which  encouraged  capital  and  enterprise  to  construct  the 
first  practical  railway  between  Albany  and  Schenectady,  which 
stimulated  Henry  and  Morse  to  subdue  the  lightning  to  the  serv- 


CENTENNIAL  OF  CAPITAL  AT  ALBANY  199 

ice  of  man  in  the  electric  telegraph,  which  fired  the  brain  of  Bell 
for  the  speaking  telephone,  and  incited  the  myriad-minded  Edison 
to  the  utilization  of  electric  power  for  light,  for  machinery,  and 
for  motors. 

Inventions  are  both  revolutions  and  revelations.  For  the 
thousands  who  are  ruined  by  the  revolution  produced  by  inven- 
tion, millions  find  new  opportunities,  employment,  and  wealth  in 
the  revelation  and  utilization  of  hidden  forces  and  powers.  It  is 
because  ours  is  the  first  of  commercial  states  that  so  many  of 
these  beneficent  discoveries  which  have  enabled  one  man  to  do 
the  work  of  a  thousand  and  yet  perform  the  paradox  of  creating 
more  remunerative  occupations  for  the  other  nine  hundred  and 
ninety-nine,  have  found  their  suggestion  and  practical  operation 
within  the  State  of  New  York. 

The  complex  and  intricate  relations  of  a  great  commercial 
and  manufacturing  center  have  raised  the  most  important  legal 
questions;  they  have  attracted  and  educated  for  our  State  the 
most  brilliant  bar;  they  have  taught  us  to  frame  and  perfect 
constitutions  which  have  served  as  models  for  other  common- 
wealths, and  have  enacted  a  body  of  broad  and  liberal  statutes. 
Our  Constitution  has  been  adopted  by  a  majority  of  the  new 
States,  and  our  codifications  by  a  majority  of  all  States. 
The  leaders  of  our  bar  have  also  been  the  leaders  of  the  national 
bar.  In  our  time  no  one  disputed  the  supremacy  of  Evarts  and 
O'Connor,  and  they  filled  the  places  which  had  been  held  by 
equally  famed  and  distinguished  predecessors.  The  commen- 
taries of  Chancellor  Kent  educated  generations  of  lawyers  and 
jurists  before  law  schools  were  known,1  and  are  the  text-books 
to-day  which  lay  the  foundation  for  our  system  of  legal  teaching. 

At  a  time  when  the  maxim,  "The  greater  the  truth  the  greater 
the  libel,"  made  impossible  the  freedom  of  the  press,  Hamilton's 
superb  defence  of  journalistic  liberty  in  the  reversal  of  the  maxim 
and  the  establishment  of  the  principle  that  the  truth  justifies  publi- 
cation, became  the  decision  of  the  courts  of  New  York.  It  was 
incorporated  into  the  statutes;  it  has  found,  after  many  years 
of  struggle,  a  place  in  the  legislation  of  all  the  States  in  our  Union 
and  of  Great  Britain.  It  has  built  up  that  tremendous  power  of 
an  independent  press  which  is  to-day  the  ruling  force  in  our 
Republic. 

Excepting  the  Litchfield  (Conn.)  Law  School,  founded  by  Tapping  Reeve  in  1784. — E$. 


200  ORATIONS  AND  MEMORIAL  ADDRESSES 

It  is  common  to  lament  the  good  old  times  and  the  better  days 
of  the  Republic.  The  result  of  my  study,  experience,  and  obser- 
vation is  that  the  best  day  is  to-day,  and  to-morrow  will  be  a 
better.  Until  1848  a  woman's  estate  became  her  husband's  after 
marriage.  She  could  not  enter  business  except  with  his  assent 
and  assistance.  Again  the  liberal  genius  of  commerce  demon- 
strated that  it  was  the  handmaid  of  civilization,  by  emancipating 
woman  and  giving  her  her  just  rights  in  the  management  of  her 
property,  and  her  equal  privileges  in  the  opportunities  of  the  times 
for  livelihood,  independence,  and  fortune.  We  all  rejoice  to-day 
in  this  enlightened  movement  and  that  the  example  of  our  State 
has  been  followed  by  all  the  other  commonwealths,  and  in  some 
countries  abroad.  Sixty  years  ago  the  Legislature  was  constantly 
passing  laws  authorizing  lotteries  to  endow  colleges,  academies, 
and  other  seats  of  learning,  for  public  works,  for  religious  and 
charitable  purposes,  and  even  for  the  construction  of  the  building 
which  was  to  be  the  home  of  the  law-making  power  of  the  com- 
monwealth. Now  this  most  insidious  form  of  gambling  and  de- 
moralization is  not  only  condemned  by  public  opinion,  but  its  prac- 
tice is  included  in  the  prohibitions  of  the  Penal  Code.  It  took 
nearly  half  a  century  of  education  and  of  agitation  to  wipe  from 
the  statute  books  the  inequalities  placed  by  the  fathers  upon  the 
right  of  suffrage.  Until  the  Constitution  of  1846  the  chartering  of 
corporations  was  regarded  as  the  legitimate  spoils  of  politicians 
and  of  parties.  It  brought  no  discredit  upon  the  legislator  to 
receive  the  free  gift  of  stock  in  the  company  which  he  endowed 
by  his  vote  with  unusual  and  monopolistic  powers.  But  to-day 
no  legislator  could  thus,  nor  in  any  other  way,  participate  in  the 
benefits  of  his  vote  without  standing  in  the  criminal  dock  and 
ending  in  the  State  prison.  Our  statesmen  discovered  that  while 
the  vast  and  complicated  machinery  of  transportation,  banking, 
insurance,  and  many  other  kinds  of  business  could  only  be  carried 
on  by  capital  contributed  by  many  individuals,  the  way  to  remove 
temptation  and  corruption  from  the  Legislature  and  control  the 
corporations  was  to  enact  general  laws  under  which  the  whole 
body  of  citizens  had  the  same  right  and  opportunities  to  organize 
for  the  purposes  permitted  by  law,  and  when  organized,  should 
fall  under  the  supervision  and  power  of  the  State,  through  one  of 
its  departments  and  officers.  Supervision  and  publicity  are  the 
great  safeguards  of  the  Republic  against  any  abuses  which  may 


rjv  /  V'J   I  A 


ORATIONS  AND  MEMOS 

common  to  lament  the  g< 
ie  Republic.     The  result  of  my  study,  experieno 
n  is  that  the  best  day  is  to-day,  and  to-morn 
r.     Until  1848  a  woman's  estate  became  her 
sage.     She  could  not  enter  business  except  with 
-lance.     Again  the  liberal  genius  of  commerce 
Led  that  it  was  the  handmaid  of  civilization,  by  emancipa 
an  and  giving  her  her  just  rights  in  the  management  oi 
property,  and  her  equal  privileges  in  the  opportunities  of  the  times 
for  livelihood,  independence,  and  fortune.     We  all  rejoice  to-day 
in  this  enlightened  movement  and  that  the  example  of  our  State 
lias  been  followed  by  all  the  other  commonwealths,  and  in  some 
countries  abroad.    Sixty  years  ago  the  Legislature  was  constantly 
passing  laws  authorizing  lotteries  to  endow  colleges,  academies, 
and  other  seats  of  learning,  for  public  works,  for  religious  and 
charitable  purposes,  and  even  for  the  construction  of  the  building 
which  was  to  be  the  home  of  the  law-making  power  of  the  com- 
monwealth.    Now  this  most  insidious  form  of  gambling  and  de- 
moralization is  not  0^  ,  public  opinion,  but  its  prac- 
tice                                                        iVilft'Pffl'  Code.      It  took 
rly  half  a  ceSALEXANDE^m^^{p^P|ftotl  t0  wipe  - 

the  statute  books  the  inequalities  placed  by  t1 

ians 
r  to 
ndowed 
by  his  vote  with  *  to-day 

no  legislv  ay,  participate  in  the 

benefits  <  rig  in  the  criminal  dock  and 

ending  in  the  State  prison.  Our  statesmen  cliscovered  that  while 
the  vast  and  complicated  machinery  of  transportation,  banking, 
insurance,  and  many  other  kinds  of  business  could  only  be  carried 
on  by  capital  contributed  by  many  individuals,  the  way  to  remove 
temptation  and  corruption  from  the  Legislature  and  control  the 
corporations  was  to  enact  general  laws  under  which  the  whole 
body  of  citizens  had  the  same  right  and  opportunities  to  organize 
for  the  purposes  permitted  by  law,  and  when  organized,  should 
fall  under  the  supervision  and  power  of  the  State,  through  one  of 
its  departments  and  officers.  Supervision  and  publicity  are  the 
great  safeguards  of  the  Republic  against  any  abuses  which  may 


CENTENNIAL  OF  CAPITAL  AT  ALBANY  201 

come  from  these  modern  devices  of  civilization,  the  corporation 
and  the  trust.  Our  State  took  up  early  the  subject  of  education 
and  treated  it  in  a  broad  and  liberal  way,  through  the  Regents 
of  the  University,  an  original  body  which  has  survived  a  century 
of  beneficent  work.  They  fostered  and  encouraged  colleges, 
academies,  and  higher  education,  while  a  Department  of  Public 
Instruction  developed  the  common  school  to  its  present  vast  and 
unequaled  proportion.  The  result  has  been  that  education  is  free 
to  every  boy  and  girl  in  our  State,  and  the  opportunities  for  liberal 
learning  are  practically  within  the  reach  of  all. 

It  is  an  interesting  illustration  of  the  fact  that  New  York 
was  always  the  cosmopolitan  State  of  the  Union,  that  the  theater, 
which  first  feels  the  restrictive  influences  of  provincialism,  re- 
opened in  our  chief  city  as  soon  as  the  civil  authority  assumed 
power,  after  the  evacuation  by  the  British.  While  pains  and 
penalties  prohibited  playhouses  in  New  England,  Pennsylvania, 
South  Carolina,  and  other  States,  there  was  presented,  in  1786, 
in  New  York,  among  other  plays,  a  comedy  written  by  Royal 
Taylor,  afterwards  Chief  Justice  of  the  State  of  Vermont,  in 
which  appeared  for  the  first  time  the  typical  stage  Yankee. 

Two  questions  of  supreme  importance,  and  testing  the  exist- 
ence of  the  Republic,  were  the  power  of  the  national  government 
to  protect  and  maintain  the  Union  of  the  States,  and  the  treatment 
of  the  institution  of  slavery.  New  York  was,  practically,  a  cen- 
tury ago,  as  now,  the  port  of  entry  of  the  country.  Most  of  the 
revenues  were  collected  within  her  jurisdiction.  The  majority 
of  her  statesmen,  led  by  Governor  Clinton,  believed  that  in  join- 
ing the  Federal  Union,  and  surrendering  to  the  national  govern- 
ment all  of  the  imperial  powers  of  peace  and  war,  of  taxation 
and  revenue,  she  was  contributing  more  than  her  share  and  aban- 
doning a  position  destined  to  make  her  the  leader,  the  arbiter,  and 
the  master  among  confederated  commonwealths.  The  vital 
question  of  national  unity  and  state  sovereignty  was  fought  out 
here  and  by  our  statesmen.  In  this  city  most  of  the  papers  of  the 
Federalist,  that  Bible  of  union  and  liberty,  were  written  by 
Alexander  Hamilton,  and  in  New  York  by  John  Jay,  these  two 
contributing  three-fourths  of  the  numbers.  Hamilton  and  Clin- 
ton, in  the  convention  called  to  ratify  the  Constitution  of  the 
United  States,  led  the  opposing  forces.  Hamilton  was  the  most 
precocious  and  remarkable  genius  and  the  most  creative  statesman 


202  ORATIONS  AND  MEMORIAL  ADDRESSES 

of  his  age.  He  had  a  comprehension  of  liberty,  a  talent  for 
building  institutions,  a  genius  for  government,  and  a  lucidity  of 
statement  which  won  the  admiration  of  his  countrymen  by  speech 
and  pamphlet  when  he  was  but  eighteen  years  old.  Clinton  was 
dogmatic,  obstinate,  and  courageous.  He  loved  New  York  with 
a  passionate  devotion ;  he  had  been  its  governor  during  the  strug- 
gle for  independence  and  the  best  period  of  his  life,  and  he  saw 
only  New  York.  Hamilton's  vision  embraced  the  whole  United 
States,  and  with  prophetic  insight  he  discerned  the  power  and 
greatness  of  the  Republic  of  the  future.  When  the  contest 
began  he  and  Jay  stood  almost  alone  in  the  Constitutional  Con- 
vention. Never  before  were  so  clearly  demonstrated  the  power  of 
debate  and  the  supreme  force  of  that  eloquence  which  commands 
listening  senates.  When  the  debate  ended  Hamilton  triumphed, 
and  by  an  overwhelming  majority  New  York  surrendered  her 
temporary  advantages  and  became  a  member  of  the  Federal 
Union,  the  Empire  State  in  a  confederation  of  commonwealths 
having  an  indestructible  nationality.  The  arguments  and  ammu- 
nition furnished  in  the  Federalist  and  in  this  debate  served  their 
purpose  during  the  sixty-years  battle  between  the  opposing  forces 
of  federal  power  and  independent  state  action,  of  union  and 
secession,  until  the  flag  of  the  Republic  conferred  its  equal  bless- 
ings and  commanded  loyalty  and  love  from  both  victors  and  van- 
quished upon  the  field  of  Appomattox. 

Freedom  and  slavery  existed  peacefully  together  for  a  quarter 
of  a  century.  Then  for  more  than  another  quarter  they  con- 
tested for  the  possession  of  the  new  territory  and  the  dominant 
power  in  the  government  of  the  country.  Abolitionists  and  Free 
Soilers  had  conducted  the  agitation  for  freedom  with  little  result. 
Abraham  Lincoln  had  sounded  the  keynote  of  the  conflict  in  1856, 
but  it  was  only  a  local  utterance  in  a  Western  State.  William 
H.  Seward,  Senator  from  New  York,  was  the  father  of  the  new 
party  of  liberty.  He  was  the  most  hated  and  the  most  feared  of 
all  the  enemies  of  the  slave  power.  He  was  the  leader  of  the 
new  movement,  its  candidate  for  President.  The  apparently 
impassible  barriers  to  the  Free  State  men  were  the  guarantees 
of  slavery  in  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States.  In  the  fall 
of  1858,  when  the  country  was  agitated  by  this  question  as  never 
before,  Senator  Seward  made  a  speech  at  Rochester.  In  it  he 
said ;  "Our  country  exhibits  in  full  operation  two  radically  differ- 


CENTENNIAL  OF  CAPITAL  AT  ALBANY  203 

ent  political  systems — the  one  resting  on  a  basis  of  servile  or  slave 
labor,  the  other  on  a  basis  of  voluntary  labor  of  freemen.  These 
antagonistic  systems  are  continually  coming  into  closer  contact 
and  collision  results.  It  is  an  irrepressible  conflict  between  op- 
posing and  enduring  forces,  and  it  means  that  the  United  States 
must  and  will,  sooner  or  later,  become  entirely  a  slaveholding 
nation  or  entirely  a  free-labor  nation."  The  "irrepressible  con- 
flict," flashed  over  the  country  and  read  by  the  people  the  next 
morning,  brought  every  friend  of  freedom  to  his  feet  with  a 
shout  of  approval,  and  every  slaveholder  and  friend  of  slave- 
holding  with  a  yell  of  defiance.  Though  Seward,  on  account  of 
local  causes  in  his  own  State,  failed  to  reach  the  Presidency, 
nevertheless  the  "irrepressible  conflict"  which  fell  from  his  lips 
on  that  eventful  night  in  Rochester  bore  fruit  five  years  later  in 
Lincoln's  immortal  Proclamation  of  Emancipation. 

There  always  exists  in  commercial  communities  a  shifting 
element  of  independent  voters  who  are  bound  lightly  by  party 
ties.  This  has  caused  New  York,  more  than  any  other  State,  to 
change  its  allegiance  so  frequently  between  the  two  great  national 
organizations.  It  has  given  intensity  to  our  partisanship  and  a 
ferocity  to  our  factions  within  the  parties  unknown  in  other 
commonwealths.  The  power  of  the  State  in  the  Electoral  Col- 
lege and  the  vast  amount  of  federal  and  state  patronage  to  be 
distributed  within  its  jurisdiction  have  created  political  conditions 
peculiar  to  ourselves.  Five  Presidents  of  the  United  States  have 
said  to  me  that  they  could  easily  solve  every  question  which  came 
before  them,  but  that  they  had  never  been  able  to  understand  the 
politics  of  New  York.  They  have  run  in  both  parties,  since  the 
formation  of  the  state  government,  very  much  upon  the  lines 
represented  by  Alexander  Hamilton  on  the  one  side  and  Aaron 
Burr  on  the  other — theoretical  and  practical  politics.  Martin 
Van  Buren  consolidated  the  power  of  his  party  in  the  Albany 
Regency,  with  Edwin  Croswell  as  its  editor,  and  Thurlow  Weed 
organized  the  forces  on  the  other  side,  with  William  H.  Seward 
as  the  spokesman.  With  matchless  courage  and  ability  the 
Albany  Regency  governed  the  State  and  sometimes  controlled  the 
country.  It  fell  because  it  would  not,  and  apparently  could  not, 
share  its  power  with  the  rising  ambitions  of  its  party.  Thurlow 
Weed,  on  the  other  hand,  appealed  to  ingenuous,  patriotic,  and 
ambitious  young  men  to  join  him  in  the  fight  for  the  control  of  the 


204  ORATIONS  AND  MEMORIAL  ADDRESSES 

State,  and  attracted  and  captured  them  as  they  successively  came 
into  prominence.  For  thirty  years  he  was  rather  the  presiding 
officer  of  a  congress  of  politicians  than  the  directing  mind  of  a 
political  organization.  Seward's  philosophic  temperament,  ripe 
culture,  brilliant  eloquence,  and  comprehensive  statesmanship 
gave  inspiration  to  the  young  warriors  who  were  following  Thur- 
low  Weed  in  the  field  of  practical  politics,  and  won  the  support  of 
pulpits  and  colleges  for  his  political  organization.  With  increas- 
ing years  Weed  became  suspicious  of  youth  and  attached  to  the 
associations  of  a  lifetime,  and  the  young  revolters  against  the 
State  machine,  led  by  Roscoe  Conkling,  broke  his  power. 

Reuben  E.  Fenton,  as  Governor,  by  his  political  sagacity  and 
the  State  patronage,  gathered  the  fragments  of  the  Weed  organi- 
zation and  became  master  of  the  Republican  Party.  General 
Grant  transferred  to  Senator  Conkling  the  appointments  to  office, 
and  Fenton  made  the  mistake  of  fighting  for  the  maintenance  of 
his  power  outside  the  party  lines.  Conkling,  with  an  undisputed 
field  and  his  great  ability,. created  a  machine  which,  for  cohesive, 
concentrated,  and  autocratic  authority,  never  had  an  equal  any- 
where in  our  country.  All  the  aspirations  and  ambitions  of  New 
York  submitted  for  twelve  years  to  an  arbitrary  rule,  which,  by 
nod  or  word  or  caprice,  promoted  or  excommunicated,  recognized 
or  drove  into  obscurity,  rising  statesmen  and  local  leaders  or 
lieutenants,  as  they  were  obedient  or  distrusted.  When  General 
Arthur,  who  had  been  one  of  Senator  Conkling's  chief  aids, 
became  President,  he  declared  his  independence  and  the  sudden 
dissolution  and  collapse  of  this  strongest  and  most  aggressive 
combination  of  power  within  a  party  in  our  history  is  one  of  the 
lessons  and  romances  of  American  politics.  Conkling  retired 
absolutely  from  public  life,  and  fulfilled  at  the  Bar  the  brilliant 
promise  of  the  earlier  years  of  his  professional  career. 

Any  permanent  concentration  of  power  in  one  or  a  few  hands 
within  the  Democratic  Party  has  been  often  prevented  by  the  per- 
sistent efforts  of  the  organization  in  the  city  of  New  York  to 
dominate  the  rest  of  the  State.  Dean  Richmond,  by  his  talent 
for  leadership  and  bluff  good-fellowship,  held  warring  factions 
together  for  many  years.  But  he  was  frequently  defeated  and 
always  weakened  by  the  magnetic  personality,  the  lofty  eloquence, 
and  unequaled  individual  popularity  of  Horatio  Seymour.  I 
remember  the  appearance  of  this  highbred,  aristocratic-looking, 


CENTENNIAL  OF  CAPITAL  AT  ALBANY  205 

and  faultlessly  dressed  man  upon  the  platform  at  Albany,  the  wild 
worship  he  inspired  in  the  fierce  Democracy  before  him,  and  his 
stampeding  of  Richmond's  carefully-selected  convention,  as  one 
of  the  most  thrilling  of  my  recollections  of  the  power  of  elo- 
quence. 

The  sudden  accession  to  commanding  position  in  the  State 
and  Country  of  Samuel  J.  Tilden,  late  in  his  life,  is  an  absorbing 
and  interesting  chapter  of  American  history.  At  three  score  he 
discovered  his  opportunity  in  the  Tweed  frauds,  and  rallied  to  his 
standard  a  remarkable  body  of  brilliant  young  men,  most  of 
whom  have  won  great  distinction  since  in  both  public  and  busi- 
ness life.  He  disrupted  Tammany  at  the  zenith  of  its  strength, 
scattered  all  existing  combinations,  captured  the  governorship 
and  the  State,  and  won  so  good  a  claim  upon  the  Presidency 
as  to  create  a  crisis  which,  equally  with  the  Civil  War,  strained, 
tested  and  proved  the  strength,  elasticity,  and  perpetuity  of  our 
Republic. 

The  Legislature  of  our  State  has  been  the  nursery  of  its  states- 
men. Most  of  the  long  list  of  men  who  became  eminent  in  the 
councils  of  the  nation  rose  to  prominence  in  the  Senate  or  Assem- 
bly. •  I  cannot  allude  to  the  living,  but  in  recalling  those  who  have 
joined  the  majority,  we  can  congratulate  ourselves  upon  the  posi- 
tion we  have  held  in  the  national  councils  and  the  imperial  influ- 
ence of  our  State  through  its  representatives.  No  other  common- 
wealth can  present  so  many  names  of  equal  power.  The  inspiring 
roll-call  contains  the  names  of  Philip  Schuyler,  Rufus  King, 
Aaron  Burr,  Gouverneur  Morris,  DeWitt  Clinton,  Martin  Van 
Buren,  William  L.  Marcy,  Silas  Wright,  Daniel  S.  Dickinson, 
John  A.  Dix,  William  H.  Seward,  and  Roscoe  Conkling.  Of  the 
twenty-three  Presidents  of  the  United  States,  New  York  has 
furnished  four.  She  has  also  given  ten  Vice-presidents.  New 
York  cannot  rest  with  being  empire  in  most  things;  she  must 
also  be  original.  Two  of  her  United  States  Senators  resigned 
their  places  in  that  august  body  upon  the  apparent  assumption 
that  any  prominent  position  in  this  State  was  more  honorable 
than  the  best  place  in  the  Federal  Government,  DeWitt  Clinton 
to  become  mayor  of  New  York,  and  Theodorus  Bailey  to  accept 
the  postmastership  of  our  city. 

It  is  our  misfortune  that,  since  the  Civil  War,  the  attractions 
and  the  rewards  of  the  professions  and  of  business  in  a  great  com- 


v^2^* 


206  ORATIONS  AND  MEMORIAL  ADDRESSES 

mercial  state,  and  the  uncertainties  of  politics  as  a  career,  have 
kept  from  public  life  or  tempted  from  it,  as  soon  as  they  became 
prominent,  the  great  majority  of  the  able  men  who  have  succes- 
sively come  upon  the  stage  and  taken  a  leading  part  in  the 
industrial  and  professional  activities  of  our  State. 

To  one  familiar  for  more  than  a  quarter  of  a  century  with 
the  men  who  have  climbed  the  Capitol  hill  and  spoken  within  the 
Capitol  walls,  this  day  is  crowded  with  affecting  and  glorious 
memories.  There  is  no  chord  in  the  lyre  of  eloquence  which  has 
not  been  touched  by  a  master  hand  in  the  discussions  of  our 
legislative  bodies  upon  questions  affecting  the  welfare  of  the  State 
or  the  good  of  the  Country. 

I  have  sat  in  the  House  of  Representatives  and  the  Senate  of 
the  United  States;  I  have  heard  famous  debates  in  the  House 
of  Commons  and  the  House  of  Lords ;  but  when  the  trumpet  call 
to  arms  for  the  salvation  of  the  Union  came  from  President  Lin- 
coln, and  New  York's  Legislature  convened  that  the  State  might 
meet  the  requirements  of  the  hour  and  in  the  subsequent  years 
of  the  trying  struggle,  I  have  listened  to  efforts  in  the  Senate  and 
Assembly  of  the  old  Capitol  which  took  equal  rank  with  the 
debates  of  Congress  and  the  speeches  in  Parliament. 

"As  goes  New  York  so  goes  the  Union"  has  been  verified  in 
twenty-three  cases  out  of  twenty-seven  of  our  presidential  elec- 
tions. From  the  little  railroad  of  twenty-six  miles,  built  in  1830, 
has  grown  a  transportation  system  covering  seven  thousand 
miles,  and  carrying,  with  the  canals,  a  greater  tonnage  per  year 
than  passes  through  any  other  State.  From  the  first  bank  char- 
tered have  grown,  within  the  recollection  of  men  now  living, 
banks  whose  capital  and  deposits  amount  to  three  thousand  seven 
hundred  millions  of  dollars,  two  thousand  five  hundred  and  fifty 
millions  of  which  represent  the  deposits  in  our  savings  banks; 
while  the  money  in  trust  companies  amounts  to  three  hundred  and 
ninety-five  millions,  and  in  life  insurance  companies,  to  six  hun- 
dred and  ninety  millions,  insuring  a  million  of  people,  whose 
policies  represent  three  billions  of  dollars.  In  the  value  of  farm 
lands  and  farm  products,  we  lead  all  the  States  except  Illinois, 
and  in  manufactures  we  are  first  among  the  American  common- 
wealths, there  being  sixty-six  thousand  manufacturing  establish- 
ments in  our  State,  employing  eight  hundred  and  fifty  thousand 
people,   and   producing  annually   one   thousand   seven  hundred 


CENTENNIAL  OF  CAPITAL  AT  ALBANY  207 

millions  of  dollars'  worth  of  goods,  or  nearly  one-third  the  entire 
product  of  the  United  States. 

From  Union  College,  which  began  its  life  the  year  before  the 
fixing  of  the  capital  at  Albany,  have  been  established,  over  our 
State,  colleges  and  academies ;  and  by  the  State  a  common-school 
system  which  educates  every  year  one  million  three  hundred  thous- 
and pupils,  at  an  annual  cost  of  nearly  eighteen  millions  of 
dollars.  One  hundred  years  ago  New  York  City  had  four  news- 
papers, with  a  circulation  of  a  few  thousand,  the  Advertiser, 
with  Noah  Webster  as  editor,  the  Packet,  and  Greenfield's  Jour- 
nal, and  the  Price  Current ;  Albany  had  three,  Orange  and  Ulster 
two,  Columbia,  Dutchess,  and  Rensselaer  each  one;  and  there 
were  only  two  west  of  Albany,  the  Herald  at  Otsego  and  the 
Gazette  at  Whitestown.  In  the  span  of  a  century,  under  the 
inspiration  of  the  freedom  of  the  press,  secured  first  in  our  State 
by  judicial  decision  and  legislation,  our  daily  papers  number  one 
hundred  and  eighty-three  with  a  circulation  of  one  million  three 
hundred  thousand,  while  our  weekly  papers  number  ten  hundred 
and  eighty  with  a  circulation  of  about  one  million  copies.  When 
this  capital  was  founded,  New  York  was  the  fifth  State  in  the 
Union.  Now  she  is  the  first  in  population,  in  wealth,  in  her 
institutions  of  learning,  in  her  annual  expenditures  for  education, 
in  the  number  of  children  in  her  schools,  in  manufacture,  com- 
merce, and  trade,  and  second  only  in  agriculture. 

The  Art  Gallery  and  Memorial  Hall  of  our  State  will  have 
upon  its  walls  historical  pictures  which  will  illustrate  and  con- 
dense the  beginning,  the  advance,  and  the  results  of  our  national 
development  and  progress.  The  first  canvas  will  exhibit  Ful- 
ton's steamboat  cleaving  the  waters  of  the  Hudson  with  a  speed 
and  power  which  woke  to  new  life  the  drowsy  repose  of  the  ages 
from  the  Palisades  to  the  Helderbergs.  From  this  little  craft 
came  the  canal  and  railway  expansion  and  the  internal  commerce 
of  our  country.  The  second  picture  will  be  a  battle  scene.  The 
red-coated  veterans  of  England,  the  helmeted  grenadiers  of 
Hesse,  and  the  plumed  and  painted  savages  on  the  one  side,  and 
the  Continental  soldier  and  patriot  farmer,  with  corn-shuck  in 
his  hat  as  his  uniform,  on  the  other,  will  represent  the  fury  and 
the  victory  of  Saratoga,  the  most  important  in  results  of  any 
of  the  fifteen  decisive  battles  of  the  world.  Two  companion 
pieces  will  be  the  British  evacuating  New  York  as  the  American 


208  ORATIONS  AND  MEMORIAL  ADDRESSES 

Army  enters,  and  Washington  bidding  a  final  farewell  to  his 
generals  at  Fraunce's  Tavern,  in  the  same  city — the  one  a  recogni- 
tion of  an  independent  power  in  the  affairs  of  the  Old  World, 
and  destined  to  rule,  protect,  or  influence  the  countries  of  the 
New  World ;  the  other,  that  subordination  of  the  military  to  the 
civil  authority  which  is  the  spirit  of  liberty  and  the  life  of  a  repub- 
lic, and  which  had  its  second  and  grandest  illustration  when  two 
millions  of  soldiers  dropped  their  arms  and  returned  to  their 
several  industries  at  the  close  of  the  Civil  War.  A  conspicuous 
panel  will  display  the  imposing  scene  and  brilliant  surroundings 
at  the  inauguration  of  the  first  President  of  the  United  States 
at  old  Federal  Hall,  in  Wall  street,  marking  the  commencement 
of  a  government  on  this  continent  which  should  demonstrate 
the  growing  power  and  limitless  possibilities  of  freedom,  which 
should  extend  its  hospitality  to  all  races  and  creeds,  and  whose 
teaching  and  example  should  liberalize  the  institutions  and  in- 
spire the  peoples  of  all  the  nations  on  the  earth.  The  first  cheap, 
plain,  and  simple  home  occupied  by  our  Legislature  in  this  city 
one  hundred  years  ago,  to-day,  will  contrast  the  past  with  the 
present,  beside  that  most  palatial  State  building  in  our  country, 
the  present  State  Capitol. 

The  Legislature  which  first  met  here  dealt  with  the  affairs 
of  three  hundred  thousand  people,  but  you,  gentlemen,  their  suc- 
cessors, after  the  lapse  of  a  hundred  years,  sit  in  the  grand  halls 
of  this  impressive  structure  and  legislate  for  a  commonwealth 
of  seven  millions  of  inhabitants.  You  will  do  more.  You  will 
prepare  the  charter  which  is  to  govern  the  metropolis  of  the  West- 
ern Hemisphere,  and  the  second  greatest  city  in  the  world.  It 
is  a  question  whose  magnitude  will  attract,  and  whose  problems 
will  interest  the  public  mind,  not  only  in  our  land,  but  in  every 
nation  where  the  municipal  situation  is  as  yet  unsolved.  Never 
since  the  formation  of  our  State  government  has  a  more  interest- 
ing or  important  measure  of  constructive  legislation  occupied  the 
attention  and  commanded  the  best  patriotism  and  ability  of  the 
representatives  of  the  people.  It  is  the  gigantic  task  of  providing 
for  the  safety,  the  rights,  and  the  future  development  of  a  com- 
pact community  greater  in  numbers  than  the  population  of  the 
whole  country  a  century  ago;  a  municipality  destined  to  have  a 
constantly  increasing  influence  upon  the  political,  social,  material, 
and  literary  interest  of  the  State  and  the  Nation. 


CENTENNIAL  OF  CAPITAL  AT  ALBANY  209 

Taking  courage,  hope,  and  inspiration  from  the  superb  re- 
sults of  our  first  century,  we  enter  upon  the  second,  confident  that 
under  Divine  Providence,  which  has  so  signally  blessed  us  in  the 
past,  the  people  of  this  State  will  prosper  and  increase  in  patriot- 
ism, in  public  spirit,  in  learning  and  art,  in  progress  and  wealth, 
in  the  preservation  and  expansion  of  the  opportunities  for  all  to 
rise  to  better  conditions  and  to  a  broader  life  and  in  the  fuller 
enjoyment  of  the  continuing  and  ever-expanding  blessings  of 
civil  and  religious  liberty. 


Vol.  1—14 


MEMORIAL  OF  PRESIDENT  GARFIELD 


ADDRESS  AT  THE  MEMORIAL  SERVICE  IN  HONOR  OF  PRESIDENT 
GARFIELD  BY  THE  GRAND  ARMY  OF  THE  REPUBLIC,  AT  CHICK- 
ERING  HALL,  NEW  YORK,  SEPTEMBER  26,   1 88 1. 

My  Friends  :  We  have  met  together  many  times  in  the  long 
years  past,  on  occasions  serious  and  trifling,  sad  and  joyful;  for 
the  hot  discussion  of  politics,  for  the  purpose  of  commemorating 
historical  and  patriotic  events,  and  to  strew  with  flowers  and  eu- 
logiums  the  graves  of  our  heroic  dead ;  but  never  before  have  we 
assembled  when  we  were  only  the  units  of  universal  and  all-em- 
bracing grief.  The  world  is  in  tears.  The  sun  in  its  course  has 
for  the  past  two  months  greeted  with  its  morning  rays  a  never- 
ending  succession  of  kneeling  millions,  supplicating  the  heavenly 
throne  to  spare  the  life  of  General  Garfield ;  and  during  the  last 
few  days  it  has  set  upon  them  bowed  in  sorrow  for  his  death. 
This  intense  interest  has  been  limited  by  neither  boundaries  nor 
nationalities.  It  has  belted  the  globe  with  mourning.  Why  has 
this  calamity  touched  the  chords  of  universal  sympathy?  He- 
roes and  statesmen  have  died  before,  but  never  before  have  all 
civilized  people  felt  the  loss  their  own.  The  glory  of  the  battle- 
field has  mingled  exultation  with  the  soldier's  agony.  Statesmen 
have  closed  a  long  and  distinguished  career,  but  the  loss  has  been 
relieved  by  the  reflection  that  such  is  the  common  lot  of  all.  Lin- 
coln's murder  was  recognized  as  the  expiring  stroke  of  a  dying 
cause.  The  assassination  of  him  who  was  the  savior  of  Holland 
and  the  hope  of  the  liberty  of  his  time  was  felt  to  be  the  fruit  of 
implacable  feud  and  religious  strife ;  but  the  shot  at  Garfield  was 
the  most  causeless,  purposeless,  and  wicked  crime  of  the  century. 
No  section,  no  party,  no  faction,  desired  his  death.  It  had  no  ac- 
cessories in  public  vengeance  or  private  malice.  The  President 
was  a  strong,  brave,  pure  man  in  the  prime  of  his  powers;  the 
trusted  Executive  of  fifty  millions  of  people ;  the  title  to  his  of- 
fice unquestioned,  and  the  nation  unanimous  in  the  purpose  that 
he  should  develop  his  policy  and  fulfill  his  mission.  Such  a  life 
and  career  so  ruthlessly  broken  arouses  horror  and  sympathy. 

210 


MEMORIAL  OF  PRESIDENT  GARFIELD  211 

But  the  love,  reverence,  and  sadness  of  this  hour  is  due  to  the 
fact  that  the  man  himself,  in  his  strength  and  weakness,  in  his 
struggles  and  triumphs,  in  his  friendships  and  enmities,  in  his  re- 
lations to  mother,  wife,  and  children,  and  in  his  battle  with  death, 
was  the  best  type  of  manhood.  He  was  not  one  of  those  historic 
heroes,  with  the  human  element  so  far  eliminated  that,  while  we 
admire  the  character,  we  rejoice  that  it  exists  only  in  books  and 
on  canvas,  but  a  man  like  ourselves,  with  like  passions  and  feel- 
ings, but  possessed  of  such  greatness  and  goodness  that  the  higher 
we  estimated  him  the  nearer  and  dearer  he  became  to  us.  In 
America  and  Europe  he  is  recognized  as  an  illustrious  example 
of  the  results  of  free  institutions.  His  career  shows  what  can 
be  accomplished  where  all  avenues  are  open  and  exertion  is  un- 
trammeled.  Our  annals  afford  no  such  incentive  to  youth  as  does 
his  life,  and  it  will  become  one  of  the  Republic's  household  stories. 
No  boy  in  poverty  almost  hopeless,  thirsting  for  knowledge,  meets 
an  obstacle  which  Garfield  did  not  experience  and  overcome. 
No  youth  despairing  in  darkness  feels  a  gloom  which  he  did  not 
dispel.  No  young  man  filled  with  honorable  ambition  can  en- 
counter a  difficulty  which  he  did  not  meet  and  surmount.  For 
centuries  to  come  great  men  will  trace  their  rise  from  humble 
origin  to  the  inspirations  of  that  lad  who  learned  to  read  by  the 
light  of  a  pine-knot  in  a  log  cabin ;  who,  ragged  and  barefooted, 
trudged  along  the  tow-path  of  the  canal,  and  without  ancestry 
behind  to  impel  him  forward,  without  money  or  affluent  rela- 
tions, without  friends  or  assistance,  by  faith  in  himself  and  in 
God,  became  the  most  scholarly  and  best  equipped  statesman  of 
his  time,  one  of  the  foremost  soldiers  of  his  country,  the  best 
debater  in  the  strongest  of  deliberative  bodies,  the  leader  of  his 
party,  and  the  chief  magistrate  of  fifty  millions  of  people  before 
he  was  fifty  years  of  age.  We  are  not  here  to  question  the  ways 
of  Providence.  Our  prayers  were  not  answered  as  we  desired, 
though  the  volume  and  fervor  of  our  importunity  seemed  resist- 
less ;  but,  already,  behind  the  partially  lifted  veil  we  see  the  fruits 
of  the  sacrifice.  Old  wounds  are  healed  and  fierce  feuds  for- 
gotten. Vengeance  and  passion,  which  have  survived  the  best 
statesmanship  of  twenty  years,  are  dispelled  by  a  common  sor- 
row. Love  follows  sympathy.  Over  this  open  grave  the  cypress 
and  willow  are  indissolubly  entwined,  and  in  it  are  buried  all  sec- 
tional differences  and  hatreds.    The  North  and  South  rise  from 


212  ORATIONS  AND  MEMORIAL  ADDRESSES 

bended  knees  to  embrace  in  the  brotherhood  of  a  common  people 
and  reunited  country.  Not  this  alone,  for  the  humanity  of  the 
civilized  world  has  been  quickened  and  elevated,  and  the  English- 
speaking  people  are  nearer  to-day  in  peace  and  unity  than  ever 
before.  There  is  no  language  in  which  petitions  have  not  arisen 
for  Garfield's  life,  and  no  clime  where  tears  have  not  fallen  for 
his  death.  The  Queen  of  the  proudest  of  nations,  for  the  first 
time  in  our  recollection,  brushes  aside  the  formalities  of  diplom-. 
acy,  and,  descending  from  the  throne,  speaks  for  her  own  heart 
and  the  hearts  of  all  her  people  in  the  cablegram  to  the  afflicted 
wife  which  says:     "Myself  and  my  children  mourn  with  you." 

It  was  my  privilege  to  talk  for  hours  with  General  Garfield 
during  his  famous  trip  to  the  New  York  conference  in  the  late 
canvass,  and  yet  it  was  not  conversation  or  discussion.  He  fast- 
ened upon  me  all  the  powers  of  inquisitiveness  and  acquisitive- 
ness, and  absorbed  all  I  had  learned  in  twenty  years  of  the  poli- 
tics of  this  State.  Under  this  restless  and  resistless  craving  for 
information,  he  drew  upon  all  the  resources  of  the  libraries,  gath- 
ered all  the  contents  of  the  newspapers,  and  sought  and  sounded 
the  opinions  of  all  around  him;  and  in  his  broad,  clear  mind  the 
vast  mass  was  so  assimilated  and  tested  that  when  he  spoke  or 
acted  it  was  accepted  as  true  and  wise.  And  yet  it  was  by  the 
gush  and  warmth  of  old  college-chum  ways,  and  not  by  the  arts 
of  the  inquisitor,  that  when  he  had  gained,  he  never  lost  a  friend. 
His  strength  was  in  ascertaining  and  expressing  the  average  sense 
of  his  audience.  I  saw  him  at  the  Chicago  Convention,  and  when- 
ever that  popular  assemblage  seemed  drifting  into  hopeless  con- 
fusion, his  tall  form  commanded  attention  and  his  clear  voice  and 
clearer  utterances  instantly  gave  the  accepted  solution. 

I  arrived  at  his  house  at  Mentor  in  the  early  morning  follow- 
ing the  disaster  in  Maine.  While  all  about  him  were  in  a  panic, 
he  saw  only  a  danger  which  must  and  could  be  repaired.  "It  is 
no  use  bemoaning  the  past,"  he  said — "the  past  has  no  uses  ex- 
cept for  its  lessons."  Business  disposed  of,  he  threw  aside  all  re- 
straint, and  for  hours  his  speculations  and  theories  upon  philoso- 
phy, government,  education,  eloquence;  his  criticisms  of  books; 
his  reminiscences  of  men  and  events,  have  made  that  one  of  the 
white-letter  days  of  my  life.  At  Chickamauga  he  won  his  major- 
general's  commission.  On  the  anniversary  of  the  battle  he  died. 
I  shall  never  forget  his  description  of  the  fight — so  modest,  yet 


MEMORIAL  OF  PRESIDENT  GARFIELD  213 

graphic.  It  is  imprinted  on  my  memory  as  the  most  glorious 
battle-picture  words  ever  painted.  He  thought  the  greatest  cal- 
amity which  could  befall  a  man  was  to  lose  ambition.  I  said  to 
him:  "General,  did  you  ever  in  your  earlier  struggle  have  that 
feeling  I  have  so  often  met  with,  when  you  would  have  compro- 
mised your  whole  future  for  a  certainty — and,  if  so,  what?" 
"Yes,"  said  he,  "I  remember  well  when  I  would  have  been  willing 
to  exchange  all  the  possibilities  of  my  life  for  the  certainty  of 
a  position  as  a  successful  teacher."  Though  he  died  neither  a 
school  principal  nor  college  professor — and  they  seem  humble 
achievements  compared  with  what  he  did — his  memory  will  in- 
struct while  time  endures. 

His  long  and  dreadful  sickness  lifted  the  roof  from  his  house 
and  family  circle,  and  his  relations  as  son,  husband,  and  father 
stood  revealed  in  the  broadest  sunlight  of  publicity.  The  pic- 
ture endeared  him  wherever  is  understood  the  full  significance  of 
that  matchless  word,  "home."  When  he  stood  by  the  Capitol, 
just  pronounced  the  President  of  the  greatest  and  most  powerful 
of  republics,  the  exultation  of  the  hour  found  its  expression  in  a 
kiss  upon  the  lips  of  his  mother.  For  weeks  in  distant  Ohio  she 
sat  by  the  gate,  watching  for  the  hurrying  feet  of  the  messenger 
bearing  the  telegrams  of  hope  or  despair.  His  last  conscious  act 
was  to  write  a  letter  of  cheer  and  encouragement  to  that  mother, 
and  when  the  blow  fell  she  illustrated  the  spirit  she  had  instilled 
in  him.  There  were  no  rebellious  murmurings  against  the  Divine 
dispensation,  only  in  utter  agony :  "I  have  no  wish  to  live  longer ; 
I  will  join  him  soon;  the  Lord's  will  be  done."  When  Dr.  Bliss 
told  him  he  had  a  bare  chance  of  recovery:  "Then,"  said  he, 
"we  will  take  that  chance,  doctor."  When  asked  if  he  suffered 
pain,  he  answered :  "If  you  can  imagine  a  trip-hammer  crashing 
on  your  body,  or  cramps,  such  as  you  have  in  the  water,  a  thous- 
and times  intensified,  you  can  have  some  idea  of  what  I  suffer." 
And  yet  during  those  eighty-one  days  was  heard  neither  groan 
nor  complaint.  Always  brave  and  cheerful,  he  answered  the  fear 
of  the  surgeons  with  the  remark :  "I  have  faced  Death  before,  I 
am  not  afraid  to  meet  him  now" ;  and  again :  "I  have  strength 
enough  left  to  meet  him  yet" ;  and  he  could  whisper  to  the  Secre- 
tary of  the  Treasury  an  inquiry  about  the  success  of  the  funding 
scheme,  and  ask  the  Postmaster-General  how  much  public  money 
he  had  saved. 


214  ORATIONS  AND  MEMORIAL  ADDRESSES 

His  first  thought  when  borne  to  the  White  House  was  not 
for  himself,  but  for  his  wife  sick  at  Elberon.  He  sent  her  an 
assuring  message,  bidding  her  come,  received  her  with  a  cheerful 
and  smiling  welcome,  and  when  she  had  left  the  room  he  said  to 
the  wife  of  a  Cabinet  Minister:  "How  does  Crete  bear  it?" 
"Like  the  wife  of  a  true  soldier,"  was  the  reply.  "Ah,  the  dear 
little  woman!"  he  exclaimed;  "I  would  rather  die  than  that  this 
should  cause  a  relapse  to  her."  Scanning  with  loving  eyes  her 
watchful  and  anxious  face  weeks  afterward,  he  drew  down  her 
head  and  whispered:  "Go  out,  dear,  and  drive  before  the  sun 
gets  too  hot ;  I  would  go  with  you  if  I  didn't  have  so  much  busi- 
ness to  attend  to;  you  will,  I  am  sure,  excuse  me." 

Forbidden  to  talk,  he  established  with  his  lifelong  friends 
and  constant  watchers,  General  Swaim  and  Colonel  Rockwell,  a 
system  by  which,  in  the  knowledge  gained  by  the  intimacy  of 
years,  single  words  stood  for  ideas.  Williams  College  Com- 
mencement, to  which  he  was  going  when  he  was  shot,  was  men- 
tioned. The  old  familiar  alumni  assemblage  became  present  to 
his  mind,  and  what  were  they  saying  of  him?  "Tenderness?"  he 
said  to  Rockwell.  "Measureless,"  was  the  reply  and  he  had 
gathered  the  spirit  of  that  memorable  meeting.  In  answer  to  an 
inquiry  General  Swaim  said  to  me :  "The  most  hopeful,  courage- 
ous, and  calm  observer  of  the  case  is  General  Garfield  himself. 
He  has  so  completely  eliminated  his  personality  that  he  thinks 
and  acts  as  if  General  Garfield  had  unusual  and  extraordinary  op- 
portunities to  study  the  condition  of  the  President  of  the  United 
States,  and  an  uncommon  duty  to  preserve  his  life." 

As  he  lay  in  the  cottage  by  the  sea,  looking  out  upon  the  ocean, 
whose  broad  expanse  was  in  harmony  with  his  own  grand  na- 
ture, and  heard  the  beating  of  the  waves  upon  the  shore,  and  felt 
the  pulsations  of  millions  of  hearts  against  his  chamber  door, 
there  was  no  posing  for  history  and  no  preparation  of  last  words 
for  dramatic  effect.  With  simple  naturalness  he  gave  the  military 
salute  to  the  sentinel  gazing  at  his  window,  and  that  soldier,  re- 
turning it  in  tears,  will  proudly  carry  its  memory  to  his  dying  day, 
and  transmit  it  to  his  children.  The  voice  of  his  faithful  wife 
came  from  her  devotions  in  another  room,  singing :  "Guide  me, 
O  Thou  Great  Jehovah."  "Listen,"  he  cries,  "is  not  that  glor- 
ious ?"  And  in  a  few  hours  Heaven's  portals  opened,  and  upborne 
upon  such  prayers  as  never  before  wafted  spirit  above,  he  entered 


MEMORIAL  OF  PRESIDENT  GARFIELD  215 

the  presence  of  God.  It  is  the  alleviation  of  all  sorrow,  public 
or  private,  that  close  upon  it  press  the  duties  of  and  to  the  living. 
The  whole  nation  unites  in  smoothing  the  pathway  of  the 
revered  and  beloved  mother,  and  caring  for  the  noble  wife  and 
her  children.  But,  as  citizens,  let  us  remove  from  our  institutions 
the  incentives  to  assassination.  The  President  is  of  one  school, 
the  Vice-president  of  another.  The  President  of  the  Senate,  next 
in  succession,  is  of  one  party,  the  Speaker  of  the  House  of  the 
other.  A  million  of  needy  or  ambitious  men  besiege  the  Presi- 
dent for  the  hundred  thousand  places  in  his  gift.  In  a  change  is 
a  perpetual  opportunity  to  retrieve  a  failure,  and  murder  forever 
lurks  in  this  concentration  and  distribution  of  patronage.  Let 
the  President  be  the  constitutional  ruler  of  the  Republic,  and  the 
civil  service  placed  on  a  business  basis.  Let  us  render  our  cordial 
support  to  him  who  under  these  trying  circumstances  succeeds 
to  this  high  office.  "God  reigns  and  the  Government  in  Washing- 
ton still  lives,"  was  the  Christian  soldier's  shout  with  which  Gen- 
eral Garfield  stopped  the  maddened  mob  when  Lincoln  was  killed. 
Arthur  is  President.  He  needs  the  confidence  and  encouragement 
of  the  people,  and  will  prove  worthy  of  the  trust  which  has  de- 
volved upon  him.  The  tolling  bells,  the  minute  guns  upon  land 
and  sea,  the  muffled  drums  and  funeral  hymns,  fill  the  air  while 
our  chief  is  borne  to  his  last  resting-place.  The  busy  world  is 
stilled  for  the  hour  when  loving  hands  are  preparing  the  grave. 
A  stately  shaft  will  rise  overlooking  the  lake  and  commemorating 
his  deeds ;  but  his  fame  will  not  live  alone  in  marble  or  brass.  His 
story  will  be  treasured  and  kept  warm  in  the  hearts  of  millions 
for  generations  to  come,  and  boys,  hearing  it  from  their  mothers, 
will  be  fired  with  nobler  ambitions.  To  his  countrymen  he  will 
always  be  a  typical  American  citizen,  soldier,  and  statesman.  A 
year  ago,  and  not  a  thousand  people  of  the  Old  World  had  ever 
heard  his  name ;  and  now  there  is  scarcely  a  thousand  who  do  not 
mourn  his  loss.  The  peasant  loves  him  because  from  the  same 
humble  lot  he  became  one  of  the  mighty  of  earth,  and  sovereigns 
respect  him  because  in  his  royal  gifts  and  kingly  nature  God  made 
him  their  peer. 


MEMORIAL  OF  PRESIDENT  ARTHUR 


address  at  the  memorial  service  in  honor  of  president 
arthur  by  the  legislature  of  the  state  of  new  york, 
in  the  assembly  chamber  at  albany,  april  20,  1887. 

Gentlemen  of  the  Senate  and  Assembly  of  the  State 
of  New  York  :  The  twenty-first  President  of  the  United  States 
was  the  third  from  the  State  of  New  York  who  had  filled  that 
high  office.  The  administration  and  personal  career  of  each  of 
them  form  marked  features  of  our  national  history.  The  condi- 
tions which  prepared  them  for  public  duty  were  strikingly  alike. 
Each  was  the  sole  architect  of  his  own  fortunes  and  without  the 
aid  of  family  or  wealth.  They  were  of  the  type  of  most  of  the 
men  who  have  always  controlled  parties  and  managed  the  Gov- 
ernment. Receiving  in  their  youth  the  training  and  influence  of 
Christian  homes,  starting  in  life  with  no  other  endowment  than 
health,  character,  courage,  and  honorable  ambition,  they  became 
leaders  and  rulers  in  their  generations.  The  historian  of  the  fut- 
ure will  fill  most  of  his  pages  devoted  to  our  first  century  with 
the  rise  and  fall  of  the  slave  power.  In  that  story  the  parts  of 
Martin  Van  Buren,  Millard  Fillmore,  and  Chester  A.  Arthur  will 
be  of  dramatic  interest.  The  revolt  of  Van  Buren  in  1848  was 
the  first  organized  effort  for  freedom  which  had  strength  or  votes. 
It  assailed  slavery  in  its  strongest  intrenchment,  its  hold  upon  the 
old  parties.  In  paving  the  way  for  their  dissolution  it  opened  the 
road  for  the  union,  upon  this  vital  issue,  of  men  hitherto  arrayed 
against  each  other  in  hostile  camps.  With  Van  Buren  as  its  leader, 
the  anti-slavery  sentiment  crystalized  into  a  powerful  and  ag- 
gressive organization.  It  broke  up  associations  which  had  existed 
since  the  formation  of  the  Government,  alarmed  and  infuriated 
the  adherents  of  slavery,  and  prepared  the  way  for  the  inevitable 
conflict.  Millard  Fillmore  sought  to  stay  the  storm  by  compro- 
mise ;  but  when  he  signed  the  Fugitive  Slave  Law  the  storm  be- 
came a  cyclone.  The  enforcement  of  the  law  brought  the  horrors 
of  slavery  to  every  door ;  it  aroused  the  old  fire  which  had  charged 
with  Cromwell  on  the  field  and  expounded  liberty  through  Mans- 

216 


MEMORIAL  OF  PRESIDENT  ARTHUR  217 

field  on  the  bench ;  it  united  the  North  in  a  solemn  determination 
to  save  the  country  and  free  the  Constitution  from  the  dangers 
and  disgrace  of  the  system;  it  consolidated  the  South  for  a  strug- 
gle to  the  death  for  its  preservation.  The  years  following  of  agi- 
tation and  preparation,  the  appeal  to  arms,  the  Civil  War  with  its 
frightful  sacrifices  of  blood  and  treasure,  the  triumph  of  nation- 
ality and  liberty,  the  reconstruction  of  the  States  upon  the  broad- 
est and  most  generous  principles,  the  citizenship  of  the  freedman, 
the  reconciliation  of  the  rebel,  gave  first  to  President  Arthur  the 
glorious  opportunity  and  privilege  of  constructing  a  message 
which  most  significantly  marked  the  happy  end  of  a  century  of 
strife,  by  its  failure  to  allude  to  its  causes,  remedies,  or  results. 
Thus  the  first  of  the  New  York  Presidents  gave  to  anti-slavery  a 
national  party ;  the  second  by  an  effort  to  compromise  with  evil 
brought  on  the  battle  which  ended  in  its  destruction ;  and  the  ad- 
ministration of  the  third  saw  the  regenerated  and  reunited  Re- 
public rising  upon  its  ruins. 

A  small  cottage  in  a  sparsely  settled  rural  neighborhood  of 
more  than  half  a  century  ago,  a  scant  salary,  the  unselfish  sacri- 
fices which  a  large  family  and  narrow  means  necessitate — these 
were  the  physical  surroundings  which  fitted  Chester  A.  Arthur 
for  his  life's  work.  His  father,  a  clergyman  of  vigorous  intel- 
lect and  ripe  learning,  his  mother,  a  pious,  cultured  woman,  gave 
to  him  by  precept  and  example  the  character  and  courage  which, 
both  in  resistance  and  action,  win  and  worthily  occupy  the  most 
commanding  positions.  All  the  marked  successes  among  our 
people  have  resulted  from  the  spur  of  necessity.  It  has  net 
been  the  poverty  which  dwarfs  and  discourages,  but  the  oppor- 
tunity and  incentive  for  larger  fields  of  usefulness  and  for  the 
gratification  of  higher  ambitions.  The  narrow  limits  of  his  little 
home  became  each  day  an  expanding  horizon  inviting  the  boy  to 
exploration  and  conquest.  From  his  father  he  inherited  that 
sturdy  Scotch-Irish  blood,  which  for  centuries  has  shown  con- 
spicuous aptitude  for  government  and  leadership,  and  he  was  early 
taught  that,  with  a  liberal  education,  backed  by  the  principles 
in  which  he  was  grounded,  all  gates  could  be  unbarred  and  all  ave- 
nues were  open  to  him.  With  these  motives  work  was  pleasure, 
and  difficulties  were  delights,  in  the  fresh  strength  and  confidence 
with  which  they  were  successively  overcome.  The  accepted  hard- 
ships of  teaching  the  country  school  and  boarding  around,  the 


218  ORATIONS  AND  MEMORIAL  ADDRESSES 

distractions  of  earning  a  living  while  fighting  for  a  degree,  tough- 
en and  develop  the  elastic  fibers  of  American  character.  When 
Arthur  had  won  the  maximum  honors  of  his  college,  and  was 
admitted  to  the  bar  on  the  completion  of  his  law-studies,  he  was 
already  a  victor  in  the  battle  of  life,  and  knew  there  were  no  dan- 
gers before  him  so  great  as  those  he  had  already  overcome.  The 
profession  did  not  receive  in  him  its  frequent  addition  of  a  raw 
recruit  whose  steps  have  been  so  tenderly  watched  and  taken  for 
him  that  he  stands  with  difficulty  and  moves  with  timidity,  but 
he  had  tested  his  powers  and  felt  the  confidence  of  a  veteran. 

It  was  natural  that  with  his  origin  and  training  General  Ar- 
thur should  at  once  have  enrolled  on  the  side  of  anti-slavery.  It 
was  fortunate  for  his  future  that  the  opportunity  came  early  to 
participate  in  a  legal  contest  which  was  one  of  the  decisive  battles 
of  that  long  struggle.  Jonathan  Lemmon,  a  Virginia  slaveholder, 
undertook  to  remove  to  Texas  by  way  of  New  York,  carrying 
his  slaves  with  him.  The  Court  was  asked  to  discharge  them 
on  the  ground  that  no  man  could  be  deprived  of  his  liberty  in  this 
State  without  the  authority  of  the  law.  Virginia,  through  her 
Governor  and  Legislature,  took  up  the  cause  of  the  slave-holder, 
and  the  Legislature  of  our  State  responded  by  employing  counsel 
for  the  slaves.  The  most  eminent  men  at  the  bar  appeared  on 
the  one  side  or  the  other.  The  whole  nation  became  interested 
in  the  conflict,  and  mutterings  of  war  were  heard.  Barriers  were 
to  be  set  to  the  encroachments  of  slavery  or  it  was  to  be  virtually 
established  everywhere.  Political  passions,  commercial  timidity, 
moral  convictions,  swayed  and  agitated  the  press  and  the  courts. 
Behind  the  States'-rights  and  vested-property  arguments  of  the 
lawyers  for  Virginia  were  the  threats  of  a  dissolution  of  the 
Union  which  had  so  often  frightened  Northern  constituencies, 
and  cowed  Northern  statesmen ;  but  the  advocates  of  liberty,  with 
unequaled  boldness  and  ability,  pressed  home  the  eternal  principles 
of  freedom  embodied  in  the  charters  of  the  Fatherland,  and  em- 
bedded in  our  American  declarations  and  constitutions ;  and  our 
highest  tribunal  reiterated,  with  phrase  altered  for  us,  Mansfield's 
immortal  judgment,  "A  slave  cannot  breathe  the  air  of  England." 
The  same  decision  had  been  eloquently  and  vigorously  rendered 
by  William  H.  Seward  while  Governor  of  our  State  years  before, 
but  it  received  little  attention  or  approval.  Then,  as  often  after- 
ward, this  great  statesman  was  nearly  a  generation  in  advance 


MEMORIAL  OF  PRESIDENT  ARTHUR  219 

of  his  contemporaries  on  the  most  important  of  questions.  While 
this  case  settled  the  status  of  the  slave  brought  within  our  juris- 
diction, the  rights  of  free  colored  people  in  our  midst  were  vio- 
lated daily.  General  Arthur  championed  the  cause  of  a  poor 
woman  who,  because  of  her  race,  was  refused  a  seat  and  ejected 
from  a  car ;  and  in  the  success  of  the  litigation,  principles  which 
after  the  Civil  War  could  receive  recognition  and  obedience  only 
by  Congressional  enactment  and  constitutional  amendment  be- 
came parts  of  the  fixed  jurisprudence  of  the  State.  He  was 
never  a  brilliant  advocate.  He  did  not  possess  those  rare  quali- 
ties which  win  verdicts  from  unwilling  juries  and  force  decisions 
from  hostile  courts;  but  he  early  took  and  held  the  important 
place  of  wise  and  safe  counsel  and  adviser.  Tact,  sense,  and 
quick  appreciation  of  the  right  were  qualities  he  possessed  in  such 
high  degree  that  they  were  the  elements  of  his  success,  not  only 
at  the  bar,  but  in  the  administration  of  public  trusts. 

This  so  impressed  Governor  Morgan  that  he  assigned  him  to 
the  most  important  position  of  recruiting  and  equipping  New 
York's  quota  in  the  President's  call  for  troops.  The  situation 
was  of  unparalleled  novelty  and  danger.  Generations  of  peace 
and  prosperity  had  left  the  State  with  a  holiday  military  system, 
and  ignorant  of  war.  The  problems  of  camps,  depots,  supplies, 
armaments,  transportation,  which  require  a  liberal  education  to 
solve,  were  suddenly  precipitated  upon  men  unprepared  and  un- 
trained. To  collect,  feed,  uniform,  arm,  and  forward  to  the 
front  tens  of  thousands  of  raw  recruits  required  great  ability 
and  unimpeachable  integrity.  An  army  larger  than  the  combined 
Continental  forces  of  the  Revolution  was  marching  to  Washing- 
ton from  New  York  by  regiments  as  completely  equipped  as  they 
were  hastily  gathered.  The  pressing  needs  of  the  Government 
on  the  one  hand,  and  the  greed  of  the  contractor  on  the  other, 
were  spurs  and  perils  of  the  organizing  officer.  It  is  one  of  the 
proudest  records  of  General  Arthur's  life  that  he  surrendered  his 
position  to  a  successor  of  hostile  political  faith,  to  receive  from 
him  the  highest  compliments  for  his  work  and  to  return  to  his 
profession  a  poorer  man  than  when  he  assumed  office. 

Activity  in  public  affairs  and  strong  political  bias  were  inevit- 
able in  a  man  of  such  experience  and  characteristics.  The 
fate  of  the  empire  depended  upon  the  issue  of  the  tremendous 
questions  which  agitated  the  country  during  these  years.     Party 


220  ORATIONS  AND  MEMORIAL  ADDRESSES 

spirit  ran  high,  and  parties  were  organized  and  officered  like 
contending  armies.  A  great  party  must  have  leadership  and 
discipline.  Revolts  become  necessary  at  times  against  corrupt, 
incompetent,  or  selfish  leadership,  but  constitutional  government 
cannot  be  successfully  conducted  by  political  guerillas  and  bush- 
whackers. If  the  common  judgment  of  mankind  is  the  voice 
of  God,  the  controlling  sentiment  of  great  parties  is  their  best 
policies;  but  that  sentiment  must  needs  be  voiced  and  receive 
expression  in  the  practical  measures  of  government  by  command- 
ing authority.  There  have  been  in  our  history  few  party  leaders 
of  the  first  class  who  possessed  those  wonderful  gifts  which 
secure  the  confidence  and  sway  the  actions  of  vast  masses  of 
men;  but  there  have  been  many  who  could  combine  and  consoli- 
date the  organization  for  work  in  the  field  when  the  canvass  was 
critical.  Among  these  General  Arthur  held  a  high  rank,  and 
the  length  and  vigor  of  his  rule  and  the  loyal  devotion  of  his 
friends  were  lasting  tributes  to  his  merits.  It  was  the  natural 
result  that  the  President  should  require  him  to  hold  a  representa- 
tive position.  The  Collectorship  of  the  Port  of  New  York  was 
at  that  time  the  key  to  the  political  fortunes  of  the  administration. 
The  Collector  was  in  a  sense  a  cabinet  officer,  the  dispenser  of 
party  patronage,  and  the  business  agent  of  the  Government  at 
the  commercial  capital  of  the  nation.  The  peculiar  difficulties  of 
the  place  had  permanently  consigned  to  private  life  every  man 
who  ever  held  it.  To  make  mistakes,  to  provoke  calumny,  to 
create  enmities,  were  the  peculiar  opportunities  of  the  office. 
That  Arthur  should  have  been  unanimously  confirmed  for  a 
second  term  and  died  ex-President  of  the  United  States  are  the 
best  evidences  of  his  integrity,  wisdom,  and  tact. 

A  long  lease  of  power  creates  not  only  a  desire  for  change, 
but  develops  internal  antagonisms.  Both  these  dangers  were 
very  threatening  in  the  campaign  of  1880.  The  first  was  a 
present  and  increasing  force,  and  success  was  impossible  unless 
all  discordant  elements  were  harmonized.  Garfield  and  Arthur, 
as  the  representatives  of  the  hostile  factions,  were  singularly 
fitted  to  accomplish  this  result.  Their  selection  contributed 
enormously  to  the  triumph  of  their  cause.  Garfield,  the  boy  on 
the  tow-path,  the  university  alumnus,  the  learned  professor,  the 
college  president,  the  gallant  soldier,  the  congressional  leader,  the 
United  States  Senator  and  brilliant  orator,  enthusiastic,  generous, 


MEMORIAL  OF  PRESIDENT  ARTHUR  221 

and  impulsive,  presented  a  most  picturesque,  captivating,  and 
dashing  candidate;  while  Arthur's  cool  judgment,  unequaled  skill, 
commanding  presence,  and  rare  gifts  for  conciliating  and  con- 
verting revengeful  partisans  into  loyal  and  eager  followers, 
brought  behind  his  chief  a  united  and  determined  party.  But 
no  sooner  was  the  victory  won  than  the  internal  strife  was  re- 
newed with  intensified  bitterness.  In  demonstrating  the  evils 
and  power  of  patronage  it  gave  effective  impetus  to  the  triumph 
of  Civil  Service  Reform.  The  struggle  was  transferred  from 
Washington  to  Albany,  and  this  Capitol  became  the  field  for  the 
most  envenomed  and  passionate  contest  of  the  century.  The 
whole  Republic  was  involved  in  the  conflict.  Upon  it  depended 
the  control  of  the  Government.  Vice-president  Arthur,  whose 
loyalty  to  his  friends  was  the  central  motive  of  his  life,  deemed 
it  his  duty  to  come  here  and  take  command  of  the  forces  on  the 
one  side,  while  a  share  in  the  conduct  of  the  other  devolved  upon 
me.  The  murderous  fury  of  the  fray  dissolved  friendships  of  a 
lifetime,  but  I  hail  with  profound  gratification  the  fact  that  ours 
survived  it.  The  bullet  of  Guiteau  struck  down  President  Gar- 
field, and  in  the  whirlwind  of  resentment  and  revenge,  General 
Arthur,  by  the  very  necessity  of  his  position,  became  the  object 
of  most  causeless  and  cruel  suspicion  and  assault.  But  in  that 
hour  the  real  greatness  of  his  character  became  resplendent.  The 
politician  gave  place  to  the  statesman,  and  the  partisan  to  the 
President.  As  a  spent  ball  having  missed  its  mark  is  buried  in 
the  heart  of  a  friend,  so  the  dying  passions  of  the  Civil  War 
by  one  mad  and  isolated  crime  murdered  Abraham  Lincoln,  the 
one  man  in  the  country  who  had  the  power  and  disposition  to  do 
at  once,  for  those  whom  the  assassin  proposed  to  help  and  avenge, 
all  that  was  afterwards  accomplished  through  many  years  of  pro- 
bation, humiliation,  and  suffering.  But  in  the  death  of  Garfield 
the  Spoils  System,  which  dominated  parties,  made  and  unmade 
statesmen,  shaped  the  policy  of  the  Government,  and  threatened 
the  integrity  and  perpetuity  of  our  institutions,  received  a  fatal 
blow.  It  aroused  the  country  to  the  perils  both  to  the  proper 
conduct  of  the  business  of  the  Government  and  to  the  Government 
itself. 

A  morbid  sentiment  that  the  civil  service  was  a  Pretorian 
Guard,  to  be  recruited  from  the  followers  of  the  successful  chief 
without  regard  to  the  fitness  of  the  officer  removed  or  the  quali- 


222  ORATIONS  AND  MEMORIAL  ADDRESSES 

fications  of  the  man  who  took  his  place,  created  the  moral  mon- 
strosity— Guiteau.  The  Spoils  System  murdered  Garfield,  and 
the  murder  of  Garfield  shattered  the  system.  The  months 
during  which  President  Garfield  lay  dying  by  the  sea  at  Elberon 
were  phenomenal  in  the  history  of  the  world.  The  sufferer 
became  a  member  of  every  household  in  the  land,  and  in  all  coun- 
tries, tongues,  and  creeds,  sympathetic  prayers  ascended  to  God 
for  the  recovery  of  the  great  ruler  beyond  the  ocean,  who  had 
sprung  from  the  common  people  and  illustrated  the  possibilities 
for  the  individual  where  all  men  are  equal  before  the  law.  While 
he  who  was  to  succeed  him  if  he  died,  though  in  no  place  in  and 
in  no  sense  charged  with  sympathy  with  the  assassination,  yet 
was  made  to  feel  a  national  resentment  and  distrust  which  threat- 
ened his  usefulness  and  even  his  life.  Whether  he  spoke  or  was 
silent,  he  was  alike  misrepresented  and  misunderstood.  None 
but  those  most  intimate  with  him  can  ever  know  the  agony  he 
suffered  during  those  frightful  days,  and  how  earnestly  he  prayed 
that  in  the  returning  health  of  his  chief  he  might  be  spared  the 
fearful  trial  of  his  death.  When  the  end  came  for  General  Gar- 
field, Arthur  entered  the  White  House  as  he  had  taken  the  oath 
of  office — alone.  A  weaker  man  would  have  succumbed ;  a  nar- 
rower one  would  have  seized  upon  the  patronage  and  endeavored 
to  build  up  his  power  by  strengthening  his  faction ;  but  the  lineage 
and  training  of  Arthur  stood  in  this  solemn  and  critical  hour  for 
patriotism  and  manliness.  Friends,  co-workers  within  the  old 
lines,  and  associates  under  the  old  conditions,  looking  for  oppor- 
tunities for  recognition  or  for  revenge,  retired  chastened  and 
enlightened  from  the  presence  of  the  President  of  the  United 
States.  The  man  had  not  changed.  He  was  the  same  genial, 
companionable,  and  loving  gentleman,  but  in  the  performance 
of  public  duty  he  rose  to  the  full  measure  and  dignity  of  his  great 
office.  It  was  the  process  which  has  been  witnessed  before 
among  our  statesmen,  where  under  the  pressure  of  sudden  and 
grave  responsibilities  the  evolution  of  character  and  capacity 
which  would,  under  ordinary  conditions,  have  taken  a  lifetime, 
or  perhaps  never  matured,  culminates  in  a  moment.  The  most 
remarkable  examples  in  our  history  were  Abraham  Lincoln  and, 
in  a  lesser  degree,  Edwin  M.  Stanton  and  Salmon  P.  Chase.  The 
cold  and  hesitating  constituency  which  expected  the  President 
to  use  for  the  personal  and  selfish  ends  and  ambitions  of  himself 


MEMORIAL  OF  PRESIDENT  ARTHUR  223 

and  friends  the  power  so  suddenly  and  unexpectedly  acquired, 
saw  the  Chief  Magistrate  of  a  mighty  nation  so  performing  his 
duties,  so  administering  his  trust,  so  impartially  acting  for  the 
public  interests  and  the  public  welfare,  that  he  entered  upon  the 
second  year  of  his  term  in  the  full  possession  of  the  confidence  of 
his  countrymen. 

The  grateful  task  of  review  and  portrayal  of  the  history  of 
his  administration  has  been  most  worthily  assigned  in  these  cere- 
monies to  the  learned,  eloquent,  and  eminent  lawyer  who  was  the 
Attorney-general  in  his  Cabinet. 

President  Arthur  will  be  distinguished  both  for  what  he  did 
and  what  he  refrained  from  doing.  The  strain  and  intensity  of 
public  feeling,  the  vehemence  of  the  angry  and  vindictive  passions 
of  the  time,  demanded  the  rarest  of  negative  as  well  as  positive 
qualities.  The  calm  and  even  course  of  government  allayed 
excitement  and  appealed  to  the  better  judgment  of  the  people. 
But  though  not  aggressive  or  brilliant,  his  administration  was 
sensible  and  strong  and  admirably  adjusted  to  the  conditions 
which  created  and  attended  it.  He  spoke  vigorously  for  the 
reform  and  improvement  of  the  Civil  Service,  and  when  Congress, 
acting  upon  his  suggestions,  enacted  the  law,  he  constructed  the 
machinery  for  its  execution  which  has  since  accomplished  most 
satisfactory,  though  as  yet  incomplete,  results.  On  questions  of 
currency  and  finance  he  met  the  needs  of  public  and  private  credit 
and  the  best  commercial  sentiment  of  the  country.  He  knew  the 
necessity  for  efficient  coast  defenses  and  a  navy  equal  to  the 
requirements  of  the  age.  He  keenly  felt  the  weakness  of  our 
merchant  marine,  and  the  total  destruction  of  the  proud  position 
we  had  formerly  held  among  the  maritime  nations  of  the  world, 
and  did  what  he  could  to  move  Congress  to  wise  and  patriotic 
legislation.  When  the  measures  of  his  period  are  crowded  into 
oblivion  by  the  rapid  and  ceaseless  tread  of  the  events  of  each 
hour  in  our  phenomenal  development  and  its  needs,  two  acts  of 
dramatic  picturesqueness  and  historical  significance  will  furnish 
themes  for  the  orator  and  illustrations  for  the  academic  stage  of 
the  future. 

The  centennial  of  the  final  surrender  at  Yorktown,  which 
marked  the  end  of  the  Revolutionary  War  and  the  close  of  Eng- 
lish rule,  was  celebrated  with  fitting  splendor  and  appropriateness. 
The  presence  of  descendants  of  Lafayette  and  of  Steuben,  as  the 


224  ORATIONS  AND  MEMORIAL  ADDRESSES 

guests  of  the  nation,  typified  the  undying  gratitude  of  the  Repub- 
lic for  the  services  rendered  by  the  great  French  patriot  and  his 
countrymen,  and  by  the  famous  German  soldier.  But  the  Presi- 
dent, with  characteristic  grace  and  tact,  determined  that  the 
ceremonies  should  officially  record  also  that  all  feelings  of  hos- 
tility against  the  Mother  Country  were  dead.  He  directed  that 
the  celebration  should  be  closed  by  a  salute  in  honor  of  the  British 
flag,  "in  recognition,''  as  he  felicitously  said,  "of  the  friendly 
relations  so  long  and  so  happily  subsisting  between  Great  Britain 
and  the  United  States,  in  the  trust  and  confidence  of  peace  and 
good  will  between  the  two  countries  for  all  the  centuries  to 
come" ;  and  then  he  added  the  sentence  which  might  be  America's 
message  of  congratulation  at  the  Queen's  Jubilee  this  summer: 
"and  especially  as  a  mark  of  the  profound  respect  entertained  by 
the  American  people  for  the  illustrious  sovereign  and  gracious 
lady  who  sits  upon  the  British  throne." 

General  Grant  was  dying  of  a  lingering  and  most  painful 
disease.  Manifold  and  extraordinary  misfortunes  had  befallen 
him,  and  his  last  days  were  clouded  with  great  mental  distress 
and  doubt.  The  old  soldier  was  most  anxious  to  know  that  his 
countrymen  freed  him,  and  would  hold  his  memory  sacred  from 
blame,  in  connection  with  the  men  and  troubles  with  which  he 
had  become  so  strangely,  innocently,  and  most  inextricably  in- 
volved. Whether  his  life  should  suddenly  go  out  in  the  darkness, 
or  be  spared  for  an  indefinite  period,  was  largely  dependent  upon 
some  act  which  would  convey  to  him  the  confidence  and  admira- 
tion of  the  people.  Again  were  illustrated  both  General  Arthur's 
strong  friendship  and  his  always  quick  and  correct  appreciation 
of  the  expression  of  popular  sentiment.  By  timely  suggestions 
to  Congress,  speedily  acted  upon,  he  happily  closed  the  adminis- 
tration by  affixing  as  its  last  official  act  his  signature  to  the  nomi- 
nation, which  was  confirmed  with  tumultuous  cheers,  creating 
Ulysses  S.  Grant  General  of  the  Army.  The  news,  flashed  to  the 
hero  with  affectionate  message,  rescued  him  from  the  grave  to 
enjoy  for  months  the  blissful  assurance  that  comrades  and 
countrymen  had  taken  his  character  and  career  into  their  tender 
and  watchful  keeping. 

There  has  rarely  been  in  the  history  of  popular  governments 
so  great  a  contrast  as  in  the  public  appreciation  of  General  Arthur 
at  the  time  of  his  inauguration  and  when  he  retired  from  office. 


MEMORIAL  OF  PRESIDENT  ARTHUR  225 

The  President  of  whom  little  was  expected  and  much  feared 
returned  to  private  life  enjoying  in  a  larger  degree  than  most  of 
his  predecessors  the  profound  respect  and  warm  regard  of  the 
people,  without  distinction  of-  party.  He  was  a  warm-hearted, 
social,  pleasure-loving  man,  but  capable  of  the  greatest  industry, 
endurance,  and  courage.  He  dearly  loved  to  gratify  his  friends; 
but  if  he  thought  the  public  interests  so  required,  no  one  could 
more  firmly  resist  their  desires  or  their  importunities.  By  his 
dignity  and  urbanity,  and  his  rich  possession  of  the  graces  which 
attract  and  adorn  in  social  intercourse,  he  gave  a  new  charm  to 
the  hospitalities  of  the  White  House.  Though  the  son  of  a 
country  clergyman  and  unfamiliar  with  courts,  in  him  the  veteran 
courtiers  of  the  Old  World  found  all  the  culture,  the  proper 
observance  of  ceremonial  proprieties,  and  the  indications  of  power 
which  surround  emperors  and  kings  of  ancient  lineage  and  heredi- 
tary positions,  but  tempered  by  a  most  attractive  republican 
simplicity.  He  said  to  me  early  in  his  administration :  "My  sole 
ambition  is  to  enjoy  the  confidence  of  my  countrymen."  Toward 
this  noble  ideal  he  strove  with  undeviating  purpose.  Even  in 
the  mistakes  he  made  could  be  seen  his  manly  struggle  to  be  right. 
Once  again  in  private  station  and  resuming  the  practice  of  his 
profession,  he  moved  among  his  fellow-citizens  receiving  the 
homage  and  recognition  which  came  of  their  pride  in  the  way 
he  had  borne  the  honors  and  administered  the  duties  of  the  Chief 
Magistracy  of  the  Republic. 

In  his  last  illness  he  had  the  sympathy  and  prayers  of  the 
nation;  and  the  grand  gathering  of  the  men  most  distinguished 
in  every  department  of  our  public  and  private  life,  who  sorrow- 
fully bore  him  to  the  grave,  was  the  solemn  tribute  of  the  whole 
people,  through  their  representatives,  to  his  worth  as  a  man  and 
his  eminence  as  a  public  servant. 


Vol.  1-15 


CENTENNIAL  OF  DEATH  OF  WASHINGTON 


ADDRESS  AT  THE  MEMORIAL  SERVICE  ON  THE  CENTENARY  OF  THE 
DEATH  OF  WASHINGTON,  BY  THE  GREAT  COUNCIL  OF  THE 
UNITED  STATES,  IMPROVED  ORDER  OF  RED  MEN,  AT  WASHING- 
TON, DECEMBER  14,   1 899. 

Ladies  and  Gentlemen  :  Centuries  come  and  centuries  go. 
From  the  limitless  past  two  stand  out  conspicuously.  History  is 
a  disheartening  record  of  experiment  and  failure  in  the  culture  of 
liberty;  but  in  the  eighteenth  century  the  foundations  of  human 
rights  were  laid  deep,  strong,  and  perpetual,  and  upon  them  the 
nineteenth  has  builded  with  marvellous  success.  The  wonders 
of  our  period  were  made  possible  by  the  wisdom  and  courage  of 
its  predecessor.  The  eighteenth  century  witnessed  the  life  and 
work  of  Washington.  The  nineteenth  is  reaping  its  fruitage. 
Happily  for  humanity  the  settlement  of  our  country  was  delayed 
until  the  modern  spirit  had  broken  the  chains  of  medievalism  and 
feudalism,  until  there  was  a  clear  apprehension  of  civil  and 
religious  liberty. 

The  Puritans  in  England,  and  Luther  and  Calvin  on  the  conti- 
nent, had  inaugurated  independence  of  thought  and  speech  and 
brought  into  the  arena  of  discussion  the  gravest  problems  of  life, 
while  trade  and  commerce  had  created  an  educated  middle  class 
possessed  of  the  open  mind  which  comes  from  contact  with  the 
world.  Marston  Moor  and  Naseby  had  rudely  shattered  rever- 
ence for  power  unless  its  decrees  were  based  on  right,  and  the 
beheading  of  Charles  the  First  had  dethroned  the  divinity  which 
had  been  the  safety  of  kings.  Three  thousand  miles  of  ocean  and 
the  exhausting  wars  of  Europe  had  left  the  colonists  thus  nur- 
tured and  taught  to  work  out,  with  little  interference  from  home, 
their  ideas  of  government  for  themselves  and  by  themselves.  The 
Habeas  Corpus,  the  Bill  of  Rights,  the  Common  Law,  the  litera- 
ture of  a  noble  period  for  English  letters,  were  theirs.  They  had 
left  behind  aristocracy,  primogeniture,  and  entail. 

In  every  home,  however  humble,  was  the  Bible.  No  imagi- 
nation can  picture,  no  words  portray,  the  influence  of  the  constant 

226 


CENTENNIAL  OF  DEATH  OF  WASHINGTON  227 

study  of  the  Bible  in  the  development  of  the  generation  which 
fought  out  our  Revolution.  It  inspired  the  whole  population 
with  lofty  ideals,  stern  and  unflinching  adherence  to  what  they 
believed  their  rights,  and  a  cheerful,  almost  eager,  purpose  to 
sacrifice  property  and  life  for  God  and  liberty.  It  gave  them 
great  thoughts  and  a  wonderful  command  of  language  to  express 
them. 

These  conditions  brought  forth  immortal  names,  but  their 
finest  product  was  George  Washington.  Indiscriminate  eulogy 
has  obscured  the  lesson  of  his  career.  He  was  neither  a  prodigy 
nor  an  accident.  Rare  gifts  of  mind  and  body  were  supple- 
mented by  a  genius  of  common  sense.  He  utilized,  with  indom- 
itable industry,  every  opportunity  to  master  the  art  of  war  and 
to  understand  the  science  of  government.  He  was  also  the  most 
methodical  and  far-sighted  business  man  of  his  time.  He  loved 
the  hunting-field  and  was  foremost  in  every  athletic  sport. 
Jefferson  says  that  Washington  was  the  best  horseman  he  ever 
saw,  and  his  fondness  for  fine  horses  drew  him  from  Mount 
Vernon  to  Philadelphia  to  witness  a  famous  race.  The  only 
officer  who  came  from  the  bloody  field  of  the  Braddock  massacre 
with  honor  and  glory  was  Colonel  Washington.  At  the  age  of 
twenty-six  he  had  been  for  five  years  in  continuous  active  mili- 
tary service  under  able  generals  of  the  British  Army  and  in  inde- 
pendent commands.  In  his  campaigns  he  had  become  personally 
familiar  with  the  country  from  Boston  on  the  east  to  the  extreme 
boundaries  of  the  western  wilds.  He  was  a  trained  soldier  of 
brilliant  reputation  when  he  assumed  command  of  the  Conti- 
nental Army  at  Cambridge  twenty  years  afterward.  For  two 
decades  as  a  member  of  the  Virginia  House  of  Burgesses,  and  of 
Continental  conventions  and  conferences,  he  had  mastered  the 
controversies  with  Great  Britain  and  become  a  constructive 
statesman  of  the  first  rank. 

It  has  been  given  to  no  other  man  in  the  story  of  nations  to 
be  the  repository  of  the  destinies  of  his  country  in  so  many  and 
such  varied  crises  in  its  history.  Washington's  career  demon- 
strates the  value  of  character.  In  genius  and  acquirement  in 
several  lines  Hamilton,  Jefferson,  and  Adams  were  his  superiors. 
Each  of  them  had  a  large  following,  but  the  following  formed 
a  faction.  All  parties  reposed  unquestioning  confidence  in  the 
uprightness  and  unselfish  patriotism  of  Washington.     "There  is 


228  ORATIONS  AND  MEMORIAL  ADDRESSES 

but  one  character  which  keeps  them  in  awe,"  said  Edmund  Ran- 
dolph. A  favorite  fad  of  the  levelling  up  by  universal  education 
in  our  day  is  the  one  that  no  man  is  indispensable  to  the  people, 
the  army,  the  government,  a  cause,  or  an  industry.  But  in  the 
clearer  view  of  a  century's  retrospect  we  now  see  that  the  death 
of  Washington  at  any  time  between  1776  and  1797  would  have 
changed  the  destiny  and  delayed,  if  not  destroyed,  the  develop- 
ment of  this  nation.  The  conspiracy  of  Conway  was  to  make 
Gates  Commander-in-Chief,  and  time  has  proved  that  Gates  was 
a  vainglorious  incompetent,  under  whose  leadership  the  Revolu- 
tion would  have  collapsed. 

When  peace  and  independence  were  assured,  the  victorious 
army  encamped  at  Newburgh  in  sullen  discontent.  It  was 
ragged,  hungry,  and  suffering  from  long  arrears  of  pay.  It 
had  little  respect  for  the  Congress  which  was  so  indifferent  to  its 
services  and  its  wants.  Under  the  leadership  of  a  popular  soldier, 
who  became  in  after  years  Secretary  of  War,  it  placed  the  dicta- 
torship before  Washington.  There  were  in  the  past  an  unbroken 
line  of  great  captains,  who,  in  the  hour  of  such  temptation,  had 
surrendered  patriotism  to  ambition.  A  general  less  loved  would 
have  been  set  aside  on  refusal  and  another  chosen.  Washington, 
by  speech  and  example,  lifted  his  comrades  above  their  sufferings 
and  anger  to  loyal  devotion  to  the  Republic  which  had  been  won 
by  their  valor,  and  established  for  all  time  the  only  principle  on 
which  a  free  government  can  exist,  the  subordination  of  the 
military  to  civil  authority. 

The  years  between  the  evacuation  of  New  York  by  the  British 
in  1783  and  the  adoption  of  the  Constitution  in  1788  were  the 
trial  years  of  representative  government.  The  Continental  Con- 
gress was  without  authority  to  meet  the  necessities  of  the  young 
confederacy,  and  the  jealousies  of  the  colonies  threatened  chaos 
and  ruin.  It  was  Washington  who  summoned  the  conference 
which  resulted  in  the  calling  of  a  convention  to  frame  a  constitu- 
tion. That  body  sitting  with  closed  doors,  its  members  full  of 
local  prejudices  and  antagonistic  views,  the  fierce  passions  of 
sectional  strife  surging  about  its  place  of  meeting,  must  create 
institutions  which  would  meet  the  critical  conditions  of  the  hour, 
and  .have  elasticity  and  expansiveness  enough  for  the  growth  and 
development  of  a  republic  of  continental  area  and  vast  popula- 
tion.    History  gave  them  the  precedents  of  a  democracy  like 


CENTENNIAL  OF  DEATH  OF  WASHINGTON  229 

Athens,  which  was  impossible  in  a  large  country,  or  royal  author- 
ity, either  absolute  or  mildly  checked.  It  told  the  disheartening 
story  of  the  leagues  between  nations  and  cities  which  had  ended 
in  fraternal  strife  and  ruin.  The  journal  of  this  majestic  con- 
vention was  confided  to  Washington  and  not  opened  until  thirty- 
three  years  afterward.  Each  succeeding  generation  has  scanned 
its  pages  with  eager  interest,  but  little  is  revealed  of  the  mighty 
debates  of  these  state  builders.  We  know  that  Washington  was 
its  President,  and  the  weight  of  his  all-powerful  influence  was 
for  a  union  of  states  in  a  government  strong  enough  to  resist 
internal  dissensions  and  repel  foreign  foes.  When  the  Constitu- 
tion was  perfected  a  new  and  novel  form  of  government  was 
presented  to  a  wondering  and  skeptical  world.  No  king,  no 
aristocracy,  no  classes,  no  state  church,  a  supreme  court  which 
could  declare  void  acts  of  Congress,  decrees  of  the  President, 
and  laws  of  the  several  States;  paramount  Federal  power,  with 
the  sovereignty  of  the  States,  aroused  incredulity  at  home  and 
contempt  abroad.  The  large  colonies  feared  loss  of  influence 
and  the  small  ones  loss  of  independence.  Washington  called 
upon  his  comrades  of  the  Continental  Army  and  his  associates 
in  revolutionary  conventions  to  save  liberty  by  union.  In  the 
convention  of  each  State  his  name  and  influence  were  potent  with 
weak  or  wavering  delegates.  Washington's  favoring  the  adop- 
tion of  the  Constitution  carried  eleven  States  for  its  ratification, 
and  the  election  of  Washington  as  first  President  of  the  United 
States  brought  in  the  other  two.  Thus  for  the  third  time  was 
he  the  savior  of  his  country. 

No  patriot  ever  accepted  a  great  office  so  reluctantly.  His 
regrets  and  misgivings  he  thus  entered  in  his  diary  when  he  left 
his  home  to  assume  the  Presidency:  "About  ten  o'clock  I  bade 
adieu  to  Mount  Vernon,  to  private  life,  and  to  domestic  felicity, 
and  with  a  mind  oppressed  with  more  anxious  and  painful  sensa- 
tions than  I  have  words  to  express,  set  out  for  New  York  with 
the  best  disposition  to  render  service  to  my  country  in  obedience 
to  its  call,  but  with  less  hope  of  answering  its  expectations." 
Samuel  Adams,  Patrick  Henry,  John  Lamb,  the  leaders  of  the 
Sons  of  Liberty,  and  multitudes  of  the  best  people  of  the  country, 
doubted  the  new  scheme  of  government.  A  large  majority  of 
the  public  men  of  the  nation  believed  in  the  right  of  the  States  to 
nullify  the  acts  of  the  Federal  Government,  and  that  it  possessed 


230  ORATIONS  AND  MEMORIAL  ADDRESSES 

no  power  to  enforce  its  decrees.  It  had  neither  navy  nor  mer- 
chant marine.  Its  unpaid  army  was  disbanded.  There  were  no 
manufactures,  no  credit,  and  a  discredited  currency.  Our  bills 
for  only  six  hundred  thousand  dollars  had  been  protested  in 
Europe,  and  by  protest  and  insurrection  the  people  declared  their 
inability  to  pay  four  millions  of  dollars  a  year  in  taxes.  The 
governments  of  Europe  received  our  representatives  with  scant 
courtesy  or  contempt.  The  only  bond  of  union  and  the  only 
basis  for  confidence  was  the  idolatrous  devotion  of  the  people  to 
their  President.  Upon  him  rested  the  gravest  responsibility 
ever  imposed  on  a  ruler. 

Washington  knew  neither  envy  nor  jealousy.  He  summoned 
to  his  Cabinet  the  ablest  and  most  distinguished  men.  Hamilton 
was  the  advocate  of  centralization,  Jefferson  of  State  rights,  and 
Adams  and  the  others  of  different  and  antagonistic  views  of  the 
prerogatives  of  the  President  and  the  powers  of  Congress.  To 
build  a  nation  out  of  chaos  and  to  hold  up  and  hold  together  the 
young  Republic  until  stable  foundations  could  be  laid  under  it, 
was  the  gigantic  task  of  Washington.  The  waves  of  party  pas- 
sions surged  against  him,  intrigues  and  conspiracies  were  formed 
to  undermine  him,  and  Jay  and  Hamilton  and  other  supporters 
of  his  policies  were  stoned  or  burned  in  effigy ;  secret  correspond- 
ence and  the  vilest  charges  and  insinuations  inspired  by  members 
of  his  official  family  and  published  broadcast  in  the  press  were 
used  to  break  the  trust  the  people  had  in  him.  Often  dis- 
couraged, but  never  disheartened;  often  aggrieved,  but  never 
angry;  calmly,  patiently,  and  heroically  he  united  liberty  with 
law  and  liberty  with  union.  He  created  public  credit,  found 
sources  of  revenue,  promoted  progress  and  energized  develop- 
ment, and  brought  the  new  machinery  of  administration  and  its 
many  departments  into  harmonious  working,  until  by  his  genius 
and  firmness  the  young  Republic  grew  to  be  a  nation  which 
inspired  loyalty  at  home  and  commanded  respect  abroad. 

The  French  Revolution  threatened  to  involve  the  world  in  war. 
The  waves  of  its  madness  swept  over  the  United  States  and  were 
followed  by  a  passionate  demand  for  an  offensive  and  defensive 
alliance  with  France,  which  would  have  destroyed  our  govern- 
ment. Washington  alone  grasped  the  perils  of  the  situation  and 
remained  calm  and  immovable.  Neither  popular  clamor  nor 
legislative  pressure  could  plunge  the  Republic  into  the  vortex 


CENTENNIAL  OF  DEATH  OF  WASHINGTON  231 

while  he  barred  the  way.  Said  a  distinguished  Englishman: 
"The  foundations  of  the  moral  world  were  shaken,  but  not  the 
judgment  of  Washington." 

Eight  years  after  the  foreboding  entry  in  his  diary  on  accept- 
ing the  Presidency,  he  returned  to  Mount  Vernon.  His  work 
was  completed.  He  had  given  national  life  to  the  stately  sen- 
tences on  the  parchment  containing  the  Constitution.  Elastic 
and  indestructible  institutions,  principles,  and  policies  were  work- 
ing harmoniously  and  smoothly  for  liberty  and  union,  and 
national  growth  and  grandeur.  The  pace  had  been  so  set  for  the 
perpetuity  of  the  American  Republic  that  neither  party  passions, 
nor  sectional  discord,  nor  civil  war  could  destroy  it,  or  impair 
its  glorious  opportunities  for  its  citizens  and  its  inspiring  example 
for  peoples  of  other  lands  struggling  for  their  rights. 

After  forty-five  years  devoted  to  the  public  service,  Wash- 
ington was  permitted  by  his  grateful  but  reluctant  countrymen 
to  retire  to  the  private  station  he  so  much  coveted  and  his  beloved 
Mount  Vernon.  In  a  century  distinguished  for  brutal  tyranny, 
reckless  ambition,  destructive  party  spirit,  and  popular  frenzy, 
the  life  and  career  of  Washington  first  astonished  and  then  won 
the  admiration  and  reverence  of  the  world.  His  home  on  the 
Potomac  became  a  Mecca,  and  pilgrims  of  royal  birth,  of  great 
achievement,  of  passionate  zeal  to  meet  the  foremost  man  and 
most  exalted  character  of  the  ages,  came  to  pay  him  homage  and 
to  be  received  with  cordial  and  gracious  hospitality. 

From  thence  one  hundred  years  ago  to-day  his  spirit  ascended 
to  heaven,  leaving  his  people  in  tears  and  his  country  draped  in 
mourning.  Europe  joined  in  the  universal  sorrow.  The  British 
channel  fleet  lowered  their  flags  at  half  mast.  Napoleon  Bona- 
parte ordered  that  black  crape  should  be  suspended  from  all 
standards  and  flags  for  ten  days,  and  arranged  an  imposing 
funeral  ceremonial  and  testimonial  oration.  Lord  Brougham 
with  characteristic  clearness  and  eloquence  condensed  the  judg- 
ment of  mankind.  He  said,  "It  will  be  the  duty  of  the  historian 
and  the  sage  of  all  nations  to  let  no  occasion  pass  of  commemo- 
rating this  illustrious  man,  and  until  time  shall  be  no  more  will 
a  test  of  the  progress  which  our  race  has  made  in  wisdom  and 
virtue  be  derived  from  the  veneration  paid  to  the  immortal  name 
of  Washington.,, 

If  the  brightest  intelligence,  most  hopeful  spirit,  and  most 


232  ORATIONS  AND  MEMORIAL  ADDRESSES 

brilliant  imagination  standing  by  the  bier  of  Washington  had 
predicted  the  results  for  a  century  of  the  experiment  of  gov- 
ernment of  the  people,  by  the  people,  and  for  the  people,  his 
prophecies  would  have  been  commonplace  compared  with  the 
marvelous  blessings  which  to-night  are  the  glorious  heritage 
of  Americans.  These  are  the  eloquent  figures  of  material 
growth.  Then  we  had  a  republic  of  fifteen  States,  now  forty- 
five.  Our  country  covered  eight  hundred  and  five  thousand, 
four  hundred  and  sixty-one  square  miles,  now  three  million  six 
hundred  and  two  thousand  nine  hundred  and  ninety  on  this 
continent  and  one  hundred  and  thirty  thousand  more  in  our 
colonial  islands. 

The  population  of  four  millions  has  become  at  least  sev- 
enty-five millions.  Our  revenues  have  increased  from  twelve 
to  over  six  hundred  millions,  and  our  estimated  wealth  from 
a  hundred  millions  to  a  hundred  billions  of  dollars.  We  import 
seven  hundred  millions  of  merchandise  annually  against  sev- 
enty-nine millions  in  1799,  and  from  an  exporting  country  of 
seventy-eight  millions  a  year,  the  products  of  our  fields,  fac- 
tories, and  mines  exported,  yield  twelve  hundred  and  twenty- 
seven  millions  of  dollars.  The  balance  of  trade  against  us  in 
1799  was  exhausting  the  slender  resources  of  our  forefathers, 
while  now  the  opulent  surplus  is  making  us  the  richest,  most 
prosperous,  and  most  progressive  nation  in  the  world.  Two 
hundred  thousand  miles  of  railroads  and  a  million  miles  of 
telegraph  wires  have  succeeded  the  twenty  thousand  miles  of 
post  routes  on  which  was  then  conducted  the  internal  traffic  and 
the  dissemination  of  letters  and  literature.  The  earnings  of 
the  railroads,  or  the  output  of  our  mines,  or  the  products  of 
our  farms,  are  every  year  far  in  excess  of  the  total  wealth  of 
the  country  at  the  death  of  Washington.  The  nineteen  colleges 
at  the  close  of  the  last  century  have  grown  to  four  hundred  and 
seventy-two,  with  one  hundred  and  sixty  thousand  students, 
while  fifty  thousand  more  are  in  the  theological,  law,  medical, 
and  scientific  schools.  The  common-school  system,  which  hard- 
ly existed  outside  of  New  England,  now  numbers  among  the 
youth  of  our  land  fifteen  millions  of  pupils. 

There  were  only  seventy-five  thousand  books  in  the  United 
States,  while  to-day  there  are  seventy-six  millions  in  our  public 
libraries  alone.    There  was  not  a  boat  on  the  Ohio,  the  Missis- 


f  UNIVERSITY 


v< 


OF 


^CENTENNIAL  OF  DEATH  OF  WASHINGTON  233 

sippi,  or  the  Missouri  Rivers,  or  on  the  Great  Lakes  at  the  close 
of  Washington's  administration;  we  close  the  century  with  an 
internal  commerce  by  land  and  water  greater  than  that  on  all 
the  other  seas  of  the  earth  and  all  the  railroads  of  the  rest  of 
the  world.  We  were  at  that  time  importing  everything  we  used, 
except  the  products  of  the  fields  and  forests.  But  to-day  our 
agricultural  machines  sow  and  plow  and  reap  on  the  fields  of 
Europe,  Asia,  Africa,  and  Australia.  Our  locomotives  are  in 
England,  our  bridges  span  the  Nile,  our  electrical  appliances 
find  their  way  into  the  colonies  of  European  countries  and  on 
the  Continent.  Our  iron  and  steel  and  textile  fabrics  are  invad- 
ing foreign  markets.  We  have  become  so  much  the  granary 
of  the  Old  World  that  an  interruption  of  our  exports  for  three 
months  would  produce  industrial  anarchy  in  England. 

The  Seven  Years'  War  began  with  the  defeat  of  Braddock 
and  the  youthful  fame  of  Washington  at  Fort  Duquesne,  and 
ended  with  the  peace  of  Paris,  which  gave  Silesia  to  Frederick 
the  Great,  and  transferred  the  Canadas  from  France  to  Great 
Britain.  The  one  started  the  German  Empire,  the  other  led  to 
the  tyrannical  acts  which  caused  the  American  Revolution.  But 
the  American  example  and  our  federal  principle  of  government 
have  borne  abundant  fruit.  The  resistless  force  of  the  success 
of  our  republican  experiment  penetrated  cabinets  and  aroused 
peoples.  Our  government  is  the  only  one  whose  Constitution 
and  institutions  have  stood  the  strain  of  steam  and  electricity, 
of  the  intelligence  and  development  of  the  nineteenth  century 
without  material  change.  The  splendors  of  the  Victorian  jubilee 
were  the  results  of  the  growth  of  the  democratic  spirit,  and  the 
recognition  of  colonial  rights  and  the  spirit  of  federation  in 
England's  colonial  empire.  Germany  became  a  federal  gov- 
ernment with  imperial  power  for  imperial  purposes,  with  inde- 
pendent sovereign  States,  in  1871.  Her  progress  in  all  which 
makes  a  great  and  prosperous  power  in  twenty-nine  years  has 
been  greater  than  in  any  century  of  her  history. 

Washington's  farewell  address  is  chart  and  compass  for  the 
twentieth  as  it  has  been  for  the  nineteenth  century.  It  is  at 
once  the  sum  and  substance  of  the  principles  of  our  national 
development  and  perpetuity  and  the  forecast  of  our  fate.  Its 
central  idea  is  that  the  liberty  and  happiness  of  our  people  at 
home,  and  our  position  among  foreign  nations  is  wholly  depen- 


234  ORATIONS  AND  MEMORIAL  ADDRESSES 

dent  upon  the  preservation  of  the  union  of  the  States.  For  that 
idea  a  million  of  citizens  shed  their  blood,  and  against  it  a  half 
million  died  in  battle,  but  the  centennial  of  his  death  finds  us 
a  united  people,  and  at  every  crossroad  and  in  every  hamlet  all 
over  our  land,  the  Stars  and  Stripes  floating  from  the  school- 
houses  is  eloquent  testimony  that  the  present  and  coming  gen- 
erations have  one  flag  and  one  country. 

Washington  advocated  the  maintenance  of  the  public  credit 
as  essential  to  national  prosperity.  At  one  period  and  another, 
in  times  of  industrial  distress  and  mercantile  troubles,  wild 
schemes  of  finance,  fiat  money,  and  debased  currency  have  cap- 
tured the  support  of  large  sections  of  our  citizens,  but  the  cen- 
tury closes  with  the  credit  of  the  United  States  in  the  first  rank 
among  nations,  and  our  faith  and  honor  untarnished.  He  ad- 
vised free  popular  education,  by  which  law  and  liberty  should 
rest  upon  intelligence,  and  the  most  complete  and  beneficent 
system  of  common  and  high  schools  embrace  all  our  youth.  He 
warned  against  party  passion  rising  to  revolution,  and  when  the 
partisans  of  a  defeated  candidate  for  the  Presidency  believed 
him  wronged  in  the  count,  the  strife  was  settled  not  by  civil 
war,  but  by  a  high  court  of  arbitration.  He  urged  the  vital 
importance  of  keeping  the  executive,  legislative,  and  judicial  de- 
partments forever  independent  in  their  several  spheres.  This 
is  the  fundamental  principle  of  our  institutions.  History  is 
full  of  usurpations  by  the  Executive  ending  in  an  autocrat  or 
by  the  Legislature  resulting  in  an  oligarchy.  The  duty  of  gov- 
erning a  nation  so  vast  and  populous  as  ours  has  become  has 
given  undreamed  of  power  and  dignity  to  each  branch;  but 
neither  the  President  nor  Congress  has  encroached  upon  the 
authority  of  the  other,  nor  has  either  diminished  the  original 
and  unusual  powers  of  the  Supreme  Court. 

This  great  court,  to  which,  in  our  government  only,  in  the 
ruling  of  nations,  is  given  the  authority  of  review  and  veto  upon 
unconstitutional  acts  of  the  States  and  laws  passed  by  Congress 
and  approved  by  the  President,  is  the  most  majestic  of  tribu- 
nals. For  a  century  it  has  administered  justice  in  litigation 
affecting  the  rights  of  States  and  citizens,  and  upon  questions 
involving  the  integrity  of  our  institutions,  which  have  aroused 
fierce  and  dangerous  partisanship  among  the  people,  with  won- 


CENTENNIAL  OF  DEATH  OF  WASHINGTON  235 

derful  ability  and  wisdom.     Its  decisions  become  the  judgment 
of  the  country. 

He  was  strenuous  that  our  Government  should  form  no 
permanent  alliance  with  any  European  power,  and  that  we  should 
keep  out  of  European  policies,  conflicts,  and  politics.  We  al- 
ways have  been,  and  we  always  will  be,  free  from  such  entan- 
glements, and  an  effective  treaty  of  offensive  and  defensive  alli- 
ance could  never  be  confirmed.  He  zealously  impressed  the 
necessity  and  lesson  of  religion  and  morality.  We  have  abol- 
ished slavery  and  extirpated  polygamy,  and  the  churches  never 
had  so  strong  a  hold  on  the  faith  and  understanding  of  the 
people. 

If  the  spirit  of  Washington  has  the  same  absorbing  interest 
in  his  country  that  he  had  of  anxiety  while  living  for  its  future, 
heaven  holds  to-night  no  happier  soul.  Our  institutions  were 
strained  in  the  preliminary  trial  to  govern  a  fringe  of  settle- 
ments along  the  Atlantic  Coast,  and  the  sparsely  populated  wil- 
derness ending  at  the  then  boundaries  of  our  country  on  the 
Ohio  River.  In  the  experience  of  a  hundred  years  of  national 
development  they  have  been  found  sufficient  for  the  wants  and 
elastic  enough  for  the  growth  of  the  Republic,  which  has  ex- 
panded to  the  Gulf  of  Mexico  on  the  south,  the  Pacific  Ocean  on 
the  west,  and  the  Arctic  Circle  on  the  north. 

American  liberty  assimilates  all  races  which  come  under  its 
influence  and  authority.  It  not  only  converts  the  immigrants 
from  every  land  into  good  citizens,  but  it  has  made  the  terri- 
tory of  Spanish  Florida,  of  French  Louisiana,  and  of  Mexican 
Texas,  of  California,  Arizona,  and  New  Mexico,  safe  seats  and 
centers  of  material  prosperity  and  political  power.  Its  educating 
and  uplifting  force  is  already  producing  beneficent  results  in 
Cuba,  Puerto  Rico,  and  Hawaii.  In  less  than  one  generation  it 
will  change  the  conditions  of  brigandage  and  anarchy,  produced 
by  centuries  of  oppression,  into  those  of  enlightened  self-gov- 
ernment. With  the  suppression  of  the  insurrection  and  the 
extension  of  the  authority  of  the  United  States  over  the  Philip- 
pine Islands,  will  come  to  a  people  long  ruled  by  force  and 
fraud  American  law  and  justice,  and  American  recognition  and 
administration  of  the  rights  and  remedies  for  the  wrongs  of 
every  individual.  Protection  for  life  and  property  and  the 
equality  of  all  before  the  law  breed  the  habit  of  loyalty  to  order 


236  ORATIONS  AND  MEMORIAL  ADDRESSES 

and  the  faculty  for  self-government.  Peace  and  prosperity  which 
follow  will  substitute  public  spirit  and  patriotic  citizenship  for 
secret  police  and  hostile  garrisons. 

In  the  evolution  of  a  hundred  years  the  Presidency  has 
reached  the  dignity  and  power  desired  by  Washington,  but  de- 
nied by  all  his  contemporaries,  except  Hamilton.  The  possibil- 
ities of  the  chief  magistracy  were  discovered  by  Jefferson  when 
he  surrendered  constitutional  scruples  for  national  safety  by 
the  purchase  of  Louisiana.  They  startled  the  country  when 
General  Jackson  seized  the  sovereign  State  of  South  Carolina 
by  the  throat.  They  received  the  sanction  of  popular  ap- 
proval when,  in  the  stress  of  civil  war,  Lincoln,  by  a  stroke  of 
his  pen,  confiscated  four  hundred  millions  of  recognized  prop- 
erty by  freeing  four  millions  of  slaves.  The  necessities  of  the 
situation  in  our  island  protectorate  and  possessions  have  devolved 
still  greater  duties  and  graver  responsibilities  on  President 
McKinley.  Extraordinary  centralization  and  concentration  of 
power  at  the  Federal  capital  have  created  one  of  the  foremost 
of  nations,  without  impairing  the  rights,  the  proper  indepen- 
dence, or  the  self-government  of  the  States.  The  President  of 
the  United  States  is  the  most  powerful  ruler  in  the  world,  but 
only  as  the  executive  of  a  free  people,  to  whom  every  four  years 
he  surrenders  his  office  and  prerogatives. 

The  peril  of  the  nineteenth  century  was  disunion,  that  of 
the  twentieth  will  be  congestion.  The  productive  power  of  in- 
vention, steam,  and  electricity  creates  a  surplus  which  endangers 
the  health,  happiness,  and  lives  of  the  people  of  Europe  and 
America.  But  dependent  races  of  the  Orient  and  of  Africa, 
and  the  stimulating  processes  of  Western  civilization  upon  their 
wants  present  limitless  markets.  The  United  States,  which  stood 
on  sufferance  at  the  doors  of  kings'  palaces  at  the  death  of 
Washington,  is  entering  upon  its  hundredth  anniversary  as  an 
equal  in  the  affairs  of  the  world,  among  the  great  powers  of 
Europe.  At  Manila  we  are  at  the  door  of  the  East,  and  none 
can  close  it  against  us. 

The  intensely  hostile  feeling  of  1799  toward  Great  Britain 
has  developed  in  1899  into  mutual  respect  and  cordial  good  will. 
Without  any  alliance,  without  any  violation  of  the  sacred  warn- 
ing of  Washington  against  European  entanglements,  there  is  an 
emulous  and  friendly  rivalry  in  commerce  and  a  frank  sym- 


CENTENNIAL  OF  DEATH  OF  WASHINGTON  237 

pathy  in  many  purposes  and  aspirations  which  make  for  the 
peace  of  the  world,  and  are  the  hope  of  the  future  for  civiliza- 
tion and  humanity  under  the  guidance  of  English-speaking 
peoples. 

In  the  fingers  of  time  monuments  and  reputations  decay 
and  crumble.  Statesmen,  soldiers,  authors,  and  orators  fill  the 
stage  for  a  period  and  gradually  drop  out  of  sight  and  memory. 
A  few  worthies  of  the  eighteenth  century  live  in  the  admiration 
or  affection  of  their  own  countries.  Of  them  all,  only  Wash- 
ington is  in  the  thought  and  reverence  of  the  whole  world.  The 
resistless  harvester  in  his  annual  rounds  shoulders  his  scythe  as 
he  passes  before  this  beneficent  intelligence  and  pure  fame,  sa- 
lutes and  marches  on.  We,  his  countrymen,  after  a  century 
whose  search-light  has  revealed  the  vices  and  weaknesses  of  our 
heroes  and  made  our  ideals  common  clay,  find  no  flaw  in  his 
public  or  private  life,  no  sentence  in  the  many  volumes  of  his 
utterances  which  we  would  blot  out.  The  orator  who  stands 
in  my  place  in  the  coming  centuries  to  recount  the  marvelous 
story  of  the  great  Republic,  and  to  recall  its  architects  and  build- 
ers, will  find  the  wisdom  and  example  for  its  guidance  and  growth 
in  the  achievements,  character,  and  life  of  George  Washington. 


STATUE   OF   COLUMBUS 


ADDRESS   AT    THE    UNVEILING   OF    THE    STATUE   OF    COLUMBUS   IN 
CENTRAL  PARK,  NEW  YORK,  MAY  12,  1 894. 

New  York  can  add  nothing  to  the  glory  of  Columbus,  but 
she  may  enforce  the  lesson  of  his  life  and  discovery.  The  fire 
kindled  by  him  on  a  little  island  of  the  Western  Hemisphere, 
amid  the  darkness  of  the  fifteenth  century,  has  become  the  flame 
which  illumines  the  nineteenth  with  light  and  liberty.  Seed 
time  and  harvest  have  their  soil  and  seasons  with  humanity  as 
with  the  earth.  In  all  ages  and  among  all  races,  the  winds  and 
the  waves  have  borne  the  kernels  of  truth,  and  they  have  been 
lost  on  the  rocks  and  in  the  waters.  There  were  patriots  before 
Runnymede,  but  their  blood  fertilized  that  field  for  Magna 
Charta.  Patriots  had  labored  and  died  in  vain  before  the 
Declaration  of  Independence  in  1776.  German  Federation  had 
been  a  Teutonic  dream  for  two  thousand  years  before  Bismarck. 
Italian  unity  was  the  hope  of  Italy  for  centuries  before  Gari- 
baldi, Mazzini,  and  Cavour.  The  French  Republic  was  the  ef- 
fort and  inspiration  of  the  best  thinkers  and  boldest  actors  of 
France  for  a  hundred  years  before  Thiers  and  Gambetta.  The 
Viking  sailed  along  the  coast  of  North  America  and  planted  col- 
onies upon  its  shores  five  hundred  years  before  Columbus.  But 
the  time  was  not  ripe  and  the  people  of  Europe  were  not  pre- 
pared for  America  and  its  opportunities. 

The  brilliant  and  liberal  reign  of  Lorenzo  the  Magnificent 
at  Florence,  which  closed  as  Columbus  sailed  from  Palos,  had 
stimulated  commerce,  art,  and  learning.  It  had  both  awakened 
and  opened  the  mind  in  every  country  on  the  continent.  The 
literary  treasures  of  the  great  library  of  the  Vatican  were  placed 
at  the  disposal  of  scholars,  and  the  revival  of  learning  was  a 
marked  feature  of  the  period.  The  expulsion  of  the  Moslems 
from  Spain  had  relieved  Europe  of  the  strain  of  warring  creeds. 
Intense  intellectual  activity  was  breaking  the  bonds  of  the  Mid- 
dle Ages  and  preparing  the  way  for  independent  thought  and 
discovery.     The  statesmanship  and  the  guile  of  Louis  the  Elev- 

238 


STATUE  OF  COLUMBUS  239 

enth  in  France,  and  the  concentration  of  power  in  Ferdinand  and 
Isabella  in  Spain,  had  broken  down  feudalism  and  centralized 
authority.  The  road  from  the  dismantled  castles  of  the  barons  to 
the  royal  palace,  and  from  the  royal  palace  to  the  representative 
assembly  of  the  people,  became  the  highway  of  liberty.  These 
wonderful  and  revolutionary  events  were  for  a  time  the  blessings 
only  of  the  favored  few,  the  great,  and  the  learned. 

It  was  reserved  not  for  kings  or  nobles  or  the  mighty  of 
earth  to  utilize  the  past  and  present  for  the  uplifting  of  the 
masses  of  mankind.  We  may  say  reverently,  as  Christianity 
came  for  us  through  the  son  of  a  carpenter,  so  the  invention 
which  opened  the  way  for  christianizing  the  world  was  wrought 
out  by  a  humble  artisan  of  Mayence.  The  significance  of  types, 
and  the  prophecy  of  their  use,  were  made  clear  in  the  selection 
of  the  Bible  as  their  first  work.  The  printing  press  of  Gutten- 
berg,  and  the  invention  of  paper  which  had  preceded  it  only  a 
few  years,  were  the  levers  and  the  levelers  of  the  future.  By 
bringing  education  within  the  reach  of  all,  they  elevated  the 
people  to  the  understanding  and  practice  of  liberty;  and  equal 
opportunity  and  rights  battered  down  privilege  and  caste. 

Incidents,  which  to  the  pious  are  special  providences  and  to 
others  trifling  accidents,  have  often  altered  the  course  of  his- 
tory. The  marriage  of  Isabella  with  Ferdinand  enabled  a  lib- 
eral and  generous  mind  to  influence  a  bigoted  and  miserly  one 
for  the  venture,  certainly  rash,  perhaps  blasphemous,  into  the 
unknown  West,  and  made  possible  the  voyage  of  Columbus. 
A  hungry  boy  stopped  his  proud  and  mendicant  father  at  the 
door  of  the  convent  of  La  Rabida,  to  meet  there  in  the  person  of 
the  Prior,  the  enlightened  and  learned  Father  Juan  Pereza,  Con- 
fessor of  the  Queen,  the  only  man  living  who  had  both  the 
breadth  and  independence  to  understand  and  believe  in  the  plans 
of  the  great  navigator,  and  also  the  confidence  of  her  Majesty. 
It  was  the  flight  of  birds  which  changed  the  course  of  the  Santa 
Maria  and  her  consorts  and  gave  South  America  to  Spain  and 
Portugal,  and  the  dominant  power  on  the  Northern  Continent  to 
the  Saxon  race.  Thus,  the  United  States,  as  distinguished  from 
the  Spanish  republics  and  the  Portuguese  empire  and  subsequent 
republic  of  Brazil,  is  apparently  an  accident  of  an  accident.  It 
is  really  the  result  of  climate  and  conditions  suited  to  the  devel- 
opment of  that  resistless  strain  in  the  blood  which  circles  the 


240  ORATIONS  AND  MEMORIAL  ADDRESSES 

Globe  with  its  conquests  and,  blended  with  Teuton  and  Celt,  with 
Latin  and  Scandinavian,  increases  the  power  and  the  promise  of 
our  country. 

Ferdinand  was  a  typical  representative  of  his  times.  We 
must  judge  the  men  of  every  period  by  their  standards,  not  ours. 
Only  fools  are  offended  at  criticisms  of  the  State  or  Church  of 
the  Dark  Ages,  and  only  the  ignorant  claim  that  either  was  so 
abreast  with  the  thought  or  education  of  to-day  that  their  sub- 
stitution for  present  conditions  would  receive  either  welcome 
or  hospitality.  The  King  believed  the  torture  chamber  better 
than  courts  of  justice.  He  knew  of  no  law  superior  to  his  auto- 
cratic will.  He  was  frugal  to  meanness,  and  devoid  of  gener- 
osity and  integrity.  He  laughed  at  Columbus  when  the  great 
navigator  was  pleading  for  the  ships  to  find  for  him  an  empire, 
and  he  cheated  the  dying  hero  of  the  rewards  he  promised  and 
the  honors  he  had  pledged,  when  the  empire  was  won.  To  Isa- 
bella had  been  wafted  across  space  a  breath  of  the  purer  air  of 
the  nineteenth  century.  When  we  consider  what  she  was,  in 
spite  of  the  almost  insurmountable  barriers  of  her  environment, 
a  sweet  and  mighty  spirit  seems  to  have  escaped  from  the  bon- 
dage of  the  age  and  inspired,  in  the  beautiful  person  of  the  Queen, 
the  soul  of  a  saint  and  prophetess.  She  gave  her  jewels  for  the 
fleet,  and  with  undimmed  faith  waited  for  the  return  which 
ended  in  triumphal  processions  and  royal  greetings.  She  struck 
the  shackles  from  the  Indian  slaves  brought  her  as  part  of  the 
booty  of  the  New  World  and  issued  stern  decrees  against  cru- 
elty and  lust ;  but  they  were  nullified  by  her  untimely  death,  and 
myriads  of  innocent  men,  women,  and  children,  were  consigned 
to  nameless  horrors  and  final  extermination.  This  favored  land 
recognizes  its  obligations  to  its  benefactress  in  granting  to  wo- 
man privileges  and  opportunities  unknown  in  other  countries.  It 
gives  to  her  independence  and  control  in  her  property;  it  opens 
for  her  the  academy  and  the  university,  and  yields  to  her  a  prece- 
dence and  power  at  home  and  in  society  which  puts  within  her 
grasp  the  substance  of  rights,  which  in  the  boasted  age  of  chiv- 
alry were  only  a  flowery  and  pretentious  sham. 

Columbus  was  of  that  rare  type  of  genius  which  belongs  to 
no  age,  and  rises  above  the  errors,  or  superstitions,  or  ignorance 
of  his  period.  While  most  of  the  learned  and  all  the  unlearned 
believed  the  earth  to  be  flat,  he  boldly  proclaimed  its  sphericity; 


STATUE  OF  COLUMBUS  241 

while  almost  everybody  feared  the  monsters  of  the  deep,  waiting 
beyond  the  western  horizon  to  devour  daring  and  sacriligious 
mariners  and  destroy  their  ships,  he  saw  on  the  other  side  of 
the  unknown  sea  limitless  empire  for  his  sovereigns,  and  myri- 
ads of  souls  for  the  saving  offices  of  his  Church.  He  had  sailed 
to  the  farthest  limits  of  the  discoveries  of  the  times;  he  had  in- 
vestigated with  unprejudiced  and  unclouded  mind  the  evidences 
cast  up  by  the  ocean  of  other  lands  and  strange  peoples.  As 
sailor,  privateer,  and  pirate,  he  had  experienced  the  dangers  of 
hostile  elements  and  armed  enemies;  as  geographer  and  map 
maker  he  had  absorbed  all  the  teachings  of  the  past,  and  boldly 
placed  upon  his  maps  the  new  continent  with  its  untold  wealth 
of  gold  and  precious  stones,  and  its  unequaled  opportunities  for 
the  power  and  greatness  of  the  throne  which  would  grant  him 
the  facilities  of  his  voyage.  The  conquest  of  Granada  and  the 
expulsion  of  the  Moors  from  Spain  seemed  to  the  statesmen  of 
Europe  an  event  of  transcendant  importance,  but  to  this  superb 
enthusiast  it  was  a  local  affair  which  delayed  the  plans  for  the 
capture  of  a  continent. 

The  spiritual  and  temporal  power  and  the  pomp  and  pa- 
geantry of  Castile  and  Aragon  formed  an  array  unequaled  in 
brilliancy  when  its  King  and  Queen,  its  prelates  and  statesmen, 
its  philosophers  and  soldiers,  assembled  to  receive  from  Boabdil 
the  keys  of  his  capital  and  the  capitulation  of  his  kingdom.  The 
enthusiasm  of  the  hour  lifted  the  Spanish  hosts  to  heavenly 
ecstacy,  all  save  one.  This  proud  pauper,  the  royal  purple  of  his 
imagination  giving  dignity  to  his  rags  and  majesty  to  his  mien, 
looked  coldly  on  the  splendid  spectacle.  To  the  man  who  had 
waited  for  years,  because  he  would  accept  no  other  terms  with 
his  fleet  than  the  Admiralty  of  the  Ocean,  the  Vice  Royalty  of 
the  Indies,  and  one-tenth  the  revenues  of  the  Western  Hemis- 
phere, the  martial  field  before  him  was  only  a  skirmish  on  the 
battle  line  of  the  universe. 

The  faults  of  Columbus  were  the  results  of  the  civilization 
and  conditions  of  his  times,  from  which  no  man  is  great  enough 
wholly  to  escape,  but  his  faith  was  his  own.  After  the  lapse  of 
four  hundred  years  it  is  as  impressive  to  us  as  it  was  potent  with 
his  contemporaries.  It  gave  immortality  to  the  humble  con- 
vent of  La  Rabida  and  its  noble  prior;  it  clarified  the  atmosphere 
and  dispelled  the  darkness  about  Isabella  so  that  she  could  grasp 
Vol.  1—16 


242  ORATIONS  AND  MEMORIAL  ADDRESSES 

the  great  truth;  it  calmed  the  fears  and  quelled  the  mutiny  of 
the  crew,  and  found  its  reward  in  the  glimmering  light  on  San 
Salvador  which  meant  for  the  sailors  land  at  last,  and  for  the 
Admiral  the  New  World  of  his  dreams,  for  which  he  had  suf- 
fered and  after  discouragements  and  perils  innumerable  had  dis- 
covered. 

In  1492  was  issued  the  cruel  edict  which  confiscated  the  prop- 
erty of  hundreds  of  thousands  of  Jews  and  expelled  them  from 
Spain.  In  the  same  year  the  same  sovereigns  equipped  the  fleet 
of  Columbus  for  its  immortal  voyage.  The  unhappy  and  un- 
fortunate Hebrews  were  landed  upon  the  shores  of  Asia  and 
Africa,  but  nowhere  did  they  receive  either  welcome  or  hospi- 
tality. The  little  ships  of  Columbus  as  they  sailed  out  of  the 
harbor  of  Palos  passed  the  great  war  vessels  carrying  these  cap- 
tive Israelites  from  their  homes.  The  royal  frigates  were  bear- 
ing them  to  fresh  horrors  and  persecutions,  but  the  weak  and 
deckless  caravels  of  the  discoverer  were,  unknown  to  sovereign 
or  servant,  guided  by  Divine  Providence  to  the  land  where  all 
creeds  and  all  races  should  dwell  in  the  harmony  of  equal  rights, 
and  unite  in  contributing  to  the  power  and  glory  of  a  govern- 
ment of  organized  liberty. 

The  inspiring  dream  of  Columbus  was  to  utilize  the  treasures 
of  the  New  World  for  the  redemption  from  the  infidel  of 
the  holy  sepulchre  at  Jerusalem.  He  believed  that  by  virtue 
of  his  name,  Christopher,  he  was  carrying  Christ  across  the 
sea  to  the  heathen.  The  lust  for  gold  made  his  followers  pro- 
fane the  name  of  the  Prince  of  Peace  with  such  outrages  and 
cruelties,  such  torturings  and  massacres  of  the  confiding  abor- 
igines, as  caused  even  the  fifteenth  century  to  shudder.  He  died, 
with  his  dream  of  the  rescue  of  the  tomb  of  the  Saviour  still  a 
vision.  He  little  knew,  as  he  lay  helpless  amidst  the  ruin  of  his 
hopes,  that  though  he  had  lost  an  empty  grave,  he  had  found  a 
perpetual  asylum  for  conscience.  He  could  not  foresee  that, 
while  in  their  savage  greed  those  with  him  and  those  who  came 
after  gave  to  the  Indians,  not  the  light  of  truth,  but  consigned 
them  to  the  flames,  and  brought  to  them,  not  the  gospel  of  love, 
but  fell  upon  them  with  sword  and  spear,  the  country  he  had 
discovered  would  be  the  bulwark  and  hope  of  the  Church. 

The  Pilgrim  Fathers  fled  from  persecution  in  England  to 
religious  liberty  in  Massachusetts.    The  Highlanders  who  fought 


STATUE  OF  COLUMBUS  243 

for  Prince  Charles  Edward  Stuart  found  refuge  in  North  Caro- 
lina. The  Quakers  who  to  be  free  from  their  tormentors  sailed 
to  Pennsylvania  and  New  Jersey,  received  there  with  open  arms 
the  Germans  driven  from  the  Palatinate  by  Louis  the  Fourteenth. 
The  Huguenots  who  escaped  from  France  after  the  revocation 
of  the  edict  of  Nantes,  built  happy  homes  on  the  Hudson  and 
under  the  shelter  of  the  groves  of  South  Carolina.  Oglethorpe 
led  the  Teutons  who  sought  opportunity  to  worship  God  accord- 
ing to  their  lights,  from  Salzburg  to  Georgia.  Irishmen,  saved 
from  the  merciless  conquests  of  Cromwell,  scattered  all  over  the 
land  to  consecrate  their  altars  and  enjoy  in  safety  their  religion. 
Dutch  Protestants  came  to  New  York,  Swedish  Protestants  to 
Delaware,  English  Catholics  to  Maryland,  and  the  English  Church 
Cavaliers  to  Virginia.  The  best  contribution  of  Columbus  to 
future  generations  was  a  continent  for  the  cultivation  of  civil  and 
religious  liberty.  A  State  built  upon  the  individual  and  not  upon 
classes  or  creeds  is  the  source  and  strength  of  American  freedom. 
It  was  the  supreme  good  fortune  of  the  United  States  that  the 
conditions  of  existence  for  its  first  settlers  were  labor,  temper- 
ance, and  thrift.  The  hostile  savages,  the  rigors  of  the  climate, 
the  virgin  forests,  and  the  resisting  soil  demanded  the  indom- 
itable energy  and  dauntless  courage  which  fashion  heroes  and 
patriots.  Had  there  been  gold  mines  in  New  England,  New 
York,  and  Virginia  to  excite  the  cupidity  of  kings  and  tempt 
the  adventurers  of  Europe,  and  to  demoralize  the  inhabitants 
of  the  colonies  and  take  them  from  their  homes  and  their 
churches  to  the  feverish  excitement  of  mining  camps,  (there 
would  have  been  little  permanent  settlement  or  public  sentiment. 
The  farms  on  the  bleak  hillsides  of  Connecticut  and  Massa- 
chusetts, in  the  Mohawk  Valley,  along  the  Delaware  and  on  the 
James,  were  fountains  of  national  virtue  and  springs  of  free 
thought  and  free  speech.  It  was  the  training  and  experience  of 
necessity  which  opened  the  avenues  of  opportunity  for  the  peo- 
ple of  North  America.  It  enabled  the  "embattled  farmers"  at 
Concord  and  Lexington  to  face  the  veterans  of  European  battle- 
fields; it  nerved  the  members  of  the  Continental  Congress  to 
brave  the  terrors  of  treason,  confiscation,  and  death,  by  their 
bold  and  clear  signatures  to  the  Declaration  of  Independence; 
it  reared  and  trained  a  race  who  could  rescind  slavery,  though 
interwoven  with  their  political  system  from  foundation  to  turret, 


244  ORATIONS  AND  MEMORIAL  ADDRESSES 

and,  after  bloody  battles  between  the  upholders  of  the  one  side 
and  of  the  other,  could  reunite  to  labor  harmoniously  for  the 
welfare  and  strength  of  the  purified  Republic. 

The  Columbian  idea  of  discovery  was  to  find  a  land  of  riches, 
where  gold  could  be  mined  from  exhaustless  stores,  a  land  flow- 
ing with  rivers  of  diamonds  and  precious  stones.  Limitless 
wealth,  easily  acquired,  was  to  enrich,  beyond  the  dreams  of 
avarice,  the  sovereigns  and  people  of  Spain.  The  Spaniard  had 
no  conception  of  the  adventurous  pioneer  and  thrifty  emigrant. 
The  Pilgrims,  landing  on  Plymouth  Rock  in  midwinter  with  no 
other  purpose  than  to  found  a  State  for  the  enjoyment  by  all 
of  just  and  equal  laws,  would  have  aroused  his  wonder  and  con- 
tempt. The  imagination  cannot  picture  his  amazement  could 
he  have  foreseen  the  marvelous  results  of  the  Mayflower's  voy- 
age. The  wealth  poured  in  such  abundant  measure  from  the 
mines  of  the  New  World  into  the  treasury  of  Spain  was  a  potent 
factor  in  the  fall  of  her  power  and  prestige  in  Europe. 

The  founders  of  our  Republic  welcomed  with  cordial  hos- 
pitality all  who  came  to  escape  from  oppression  or  to  better  their 
condition.  The  immigrants  who  accepted  the  invitation  and 
landed  by  millions  on  our  shores  brought  the  qualities  and  pur- 
poses which  have  added  incalculably  to  the  wealth  and  glory  of 
our  country.  While  South  America  and  Mexico  were  demoral- 
izing Europe  with  gold  and  silver,  Europe  was  contributing  to 
the  United  States  her  farmers  and  artisans  to  gather  from  the 
fruitful  earth  and  produce  in  the  busy  factory  an  annual  and 
ever  increasing  volume  of  wealth;  wealth  which  enriches  but 
does  not  enervate,  which  stimulates  invention,  promotes  prog- 
ress, founds  institutions  of  learning,  builds  homes  for  the  many 
and  increases  the  happiness  of  all.  Four  centuries  separate 
us  from  Columbus.  Within  this  period  more  has  been  accom- 
plished for  humanity  than  in  the  four  thousand  years  which 
preceded  him. 

We  are  here  to  erect  this  statue  to  his  memory  because  of 
the  unnumbered  blessings  to  America,  and  to  the  people  of  every 
race  and  clime,  as  the  results  of  his  discovery.  His  genius  and 
faith  gave  to  succeeding  generations  the  opportunity  for  life 
and  liberty.  We,  the  heirs  of  all  the  ages,  in  the  plenitude  of 
our  enjoyments  and  the  prodigality  of  the  favors  showered  upon 
us,  hail  Columbus — hero  and  benefactor. 


GRAND  ARMY  OF  THE  REPUBLIC 


ADDRESS  AT  THE  MEMORIAL  DAY  SERVICES  OF  THE  GRAND  ARMY 
OF  THE  REPUBLIC,  CARNEGIE  HALL,  NEW  YORK,  MAY  30, 
I905. 

Mr.  President,  Comrades  and  Friends:  It  is  both  for- 
tunate and  unfortunate  that  time  buries  men  and  events  in 
oblivion.  Griefs  which  might  never  die,  passions  and  revenges 
which  would  never  end,  time  happily  obliterates.  But  there  are 
periods  of  national  history  which  should  be  recalled  on  anniver- 
sary occasions  for  the  education  and  patriotism  of  succeeding 
generations. 

The  United  States  and  Great  Britain  have  fewer  causes  of 
difference  and  more  binding  ties  of  friendship  now  than  any 
other  countries.  The  Revolutionary  War  emancipated  them  both. 
Through  universal  suffrage  democratic  spirit  governs  Great  Brit- 
ain and  it  is  not  only  the  strength  of  our  institutions  but  the  in- 
spiring motive  of  our  national  life.  While  fortunately  the  ani- 
mosities of  the  Revolutionary  War  are  dead,  the  Fourth  of  July 
must  be  celebrated  forever.  It  tells  the  story  of  our  birth  as 
a  nation  and  enforces  the  lesson  of  civil  and  religious  liberty. 
It  recalls  heroes  and  statesmen  for  our  reverence  and  our  admira- 
tion and  as  exemplars  of  heroism  and  statesmanship.  It  is  also 
our  duty  to  promote  the  national  good  feeling  and  kinship  which 
has  followed  our  Civil  War.  It  is  our  highest  duty  to  abstain 
from  all  things  which  would  revive  the  bitterness  of  that  strife, 
yet  the  lessons  which  are  taught  by  Memorial  Day  are  of  incal- 
culable value.  They  bring  back  no  thought  of  revenge  or  re- 
prisal, but  they  are  of  equal  force  and  sanctity  to  those  who 
fought  on  both  sides  in  that  titanic  struggle.  The  war  closed 
forty  years  ago.  A  large  majority  of  our  people  know  nothing 
of  its  causes  or  its  horrors.  A  brief  review  of  the  sixty  years 
of  battle  between  freedom  and  slavery  which  led  up  to  it  cannot 
be  too  often  repeated.  The  blame  can  be  so  divided  as  to  rest 
upon  no  section. 

The  Fathers  of  the  Republic  adopted  the  noblest  declara- 

245 


246  ORATIONS  AND  MEMORIAL  ADDRESSES 

tion  of  human  rights  ever  placed  before  the  world,  when  they 
said  "All  men  are  created  equal,  are  endowed  by  their  Creator 
with  certain  inalienable  rights,  and  that  among  these  are  life, 
liberty,  and  the  pursuit  of  happiness."  But  they  left  a  legacy  of 
strife  which  ended  in  civil  war  when  they  compromised  with 
liberty  in  order  in  their  constitution  to  protect  slavery.  They 
believed  in  time,  and  that  not  distant,  slavery  would  be  abolished 
by  economic  causes.  But  it  is  never  safe  to  rely  upon  future 
happenings  to  eradicate  an  evil  which  the  generation  commit- 
ting it  has  not  the  courage  to  stamp  out. 

Whitney's  invention  of  the  cotton-gin  gave  an  impetus  to  cot- 
ton culture  and  manufacture  which  added  greatly  to  the  value  of 
slave  labor.  It  created  an  oligarchy  who,  living  upon  the  un- 
compensated work  of  others,  devoted  their  lives  to  the  protection 
and  perpetuation  of  their  system.  They  were  educated  at  the  best 
universities  of  Europe  and  the  United  States  for  public  life. 
Those  of  them  who  displayed  ability  were  kept  continuously  in 
Congress.  They  presented  a  solid  front  on  all  questions  and  at 
the  National  Conventions  of  all  parties  if  slavery  was  affected. 
Their  experienced  and  concentrated  power  enabled  them  to  domi- 
nate both  great  parties  and  control  the  Government.  The  North, 
which  had  become  manufacturing,  while  the  South  remained 
purely  agricultural,  found  the  slave-holding  States  their  best 
market  and  the  slave-holders  their  best  customers.  The  wealth, 
the  business  interests,  in  a  measure  the  pulpit,  and  in  a  measure 
also  the  colleges  of  the  North  were  in  sympathy  and  accord  with 
the  South.  This  fear  of  loss  of  trade  and  employment  led  to 
repeated  surrenders  by  the  free  States  to  the  slave  owners  at  the 
threat  of  disunion.  The  threat  of  disunion  was  averted  in  1820 
by  a  compromise  which  gave  slavery  rights  in  a  free  territory,  in 
1830  by  the  courage  and  indomitable  will  of  President  Andrew 
Jackson,  in  1850  by  another  compromise  of  more  free  land  for 
slave  labor,  and  in  1856  by  the  election  of  a  pro-slavery  adminis- 
tration. The  free  States,  absorbed  in  materialism,  in  agriculture, 
manufactures,  merchandise,  and  the  development  of  their  wealth, 
paid  no  attention  while  the  pro-slavery  administration  seeing  that 
the  next  election  might  result  in  an  anti-slavery  President,  distrib- 
uted our  navy  so  that  only  one  ship  remained  for  national  pur- 
poses, scattered  our  army  all  over  the  land,  placed  the  contents  of 
our  arsenals  and  our  military  stores  where  they  could  be  easily 


GRAND  ARMY  OF  THE  REPUBLIC        247 

seized  by  the  leaders  of  the  Rebellion  and  made  every  preparation 
for  successful  secession.  The  conditions  were  such  that  the  growth 
and  development  which  astonished  the  world  after  the  Civil  War 
were  impossible.  In  a  nominally  free  country  labor  was  de- 
graded because  in  one  half  of  the  land  the  laborer  was  merchan- 
dise. The  moral  sense  of  the  country  was  so  obscured  by  training 
and  greed  that  practically  all  the  people  of  the  slave  States  and 
a  very  large  minority  in  the  free  States  believed  slavery  to  be 
right,  and  property  which  could  be  righteously  fought  for  even 
to  the  destruction  of  our  National  Union. 

A  few  pictures  will  tell  the  story  to  those  of  you  who  were 
not  participants  of  the  awakening  of  the  American  conscience,  of 
the  development  into  an  unquenchable  flame  of  the  smouldering 
fires  of  patriotism,  of  the  readoption  in  practice  and  spirit  of  the 
Declaration  of  Independence,  and  a  reunited  country  placed  upon 
an  enduring  basis  by  enormous  sacrifices  of  blood  and  treasure. 
They  will  tell  you  why  we  have  to-day  strewn  with  flowers  the 
graves  of  our  heroic  dead  and  why  we  are  here  to-night.  It  was 
a  beautiful  April  morning  in  i860  when  in  the  little  village  where 
I  lived  the  churches  had  emptied  their  congregations  and  the 
streets  were  filled  with  the  worshippers.  They  were  a  merry 
people  of  fathers  and  mothers,  of  elders  and  children,  of  lovers 
and  sweethearts,  wending  their  way  to  their  several  homes. 

Suddenly  there  appeared  excited  men  around  whom  were 
grouped  instantly  breathless  crowds  listening  to  the  story  gathered 
from  telegraph  offices  that  the  flag  had  been  fired  upon  at  Fort 
Sumter.  Up  to  that  hour  the  sacredness  of  that  emblem  had  not 
been  appreciated.  What  it  meant  of  national  power,  independ- 
ence, liberty,  and  happiness  had  not  been  revealed.  Similar 
scenes  were  occurring  all  over  the  country.  The  next  evening  in 
the  arsenal  of  the  little  military  company  which  had  kept  its 
organization  alive  since  the  Revolutionary  War,  hundreds  of 
citizens  were  drilling.  Then  came  Lincoln's  call  for  troops.  As 
the  volunteers  left,  the  seriousness  of  their  mission  was  not  yet 
understood.  The  dangers  to  the  recruits  were  not  apparent,  the 
perils  of  the  struggle  were  not  evident,  and  the  parting  had  rather 
the  characteristics,  both  for  those  who  went  and  those  who  were 
left  behind,  of  an  excursion  than  of  a  battle.  Then  came  the 
news  of  the  first  fight.  The  eager  scanning  of  the  bulletin  of  the 
list  of  the  killed  and  wounded.     Among  the  company  which 


248  ORATIONS  AND  MEMORIAL  ADDRESSES 

marched  so  gaily  forth  was  one  young  man  who  was  the  pride 
of  the  village,  the  leader  in  its  church  work,  in  its  politics  as  well 
as  in  its  sport  and  athletics.  The  pride  of  the  village  was  en- 
hanced by  the  stories  of  his  gallantry,  his  rapid  promotion,  and 
the  distinguished  career  opened  for  him  as  a  soldier.  But  when, 
with  stores  and  factories  closed,  with  the  flag  at  half  mast  and 
with  muffled  drum  the  whole  population  followed  him  over  the 
hills  to  the  village  churchyard  the  seriousness  of  the  struggle, 
the  issues  at  stake,  the  sacrifices  to  be  made,  came  home  to  the 
families,  most  of  whom  had  a  member  at  the  front.  The  church 
goers  in  increasing  numbers  every  Sabbath  appeared  in  the  garb 
of  mourning,  but  with  both  men  and  women  was  an  increasing 
earnestness  and  determination  for  the  extirpation  of  slavery,  the 
preservation  of  the  Union,  and  the  support  of  Abraham  Lincoln. 
The  war  was  over ;  the  armies  of  Grant  and  Sherman,  after 
marching  through  the  streets  of  the  Capital  to  be  reviewed  by  the 
President,  astounded  the  world  by  disbanding  to  their  homes  to 
take  up  again  the  peaceful  pursuits  of  citizenship.  The  remnant 
of  the  regiment  which  had  gone  forth  in  such  brave  array  again 
marched  through  the  streets  of  the  village  to  be  welcomed  as 
part  of  that  Grand  Army  which  had  saved  the  Union.  Years 
passed  by  and  the  village  had  its  first  Memorial  Day.  I  knew 
every  one  of  the  Boys  in  Blue  whose  graves  had  been  decorated. 
The  old  church  had  stood  there  more  than  two  hundred  years 
and  been  the  headquarters  of  Washington,  a  hospital  for  the 
Continental  Army,  and  a  chapel  as  part  of  its  existence  during 
these  two  centuries.  As  I  stood  upon  the  porch  to  deliver  the 
address  every  man  and  woman  in  front  of  me  was  in  mourning. 
There  was  a  vacant  chair  at  every  fireside  of  that  township  and 
the  hero  of  the  house  was  either  lying  in  an  unknown  grave  on 
some  distant  battlefield  or  sleeping  among  his  kindred  beside  the 
church.  As  it  developed  what  these,  our  dear  heroes,  had  done 
and  for  what  they  fought  and  died  the  presentation  was  followed 
by  such  agonies  of  grief  as  happily  a  speaker  is  rarely  permitted  to 
witness.  But  to-day  there  was  another  gathering  in  the  old 
churchyard,  the  families  and  the  relatives  were  again  there,  it  was 
no  longer  father,  mother,  wife,  sweetheart,  but  their  children  and 
grandchildren.  Time  had  obliterated  grief,  it  was  a  joyous 
throng,  it  was  strewing  flowers  and  planting  little  flags  upon  the 
grave  of  him  who  had  reflected  the  greatest  honor  upon  the 


GRAND    ARMY   OF   THE   REPUBLIC  249 

family,  whose  sword  or  gun  was  its  most  precious  possession.  It 
was  a  carnival  of  joy  in  the  liberty  and  happiness,  in  the  prosper- 
ity and  comfort,  throughout  the  country  so  powerful  and  so  rich, 
so  full  of  healthful  opportunity,  all  of  which  had  come  through 
their  hero,  who  had  carried  during  the  war  that  cherished  gun  or 
sword,  and  his  comrades  in  arms. 

It  is  a  glorious  thought  that  the  blue  and  the  gray  marched 
together  to-day  and  shared  the  flower  gifts  which  were  impar- 
tially distributed.  We  owe  to  the  South  this  beautiful  custom. 
When  to  the  women  of  the  land  of  flowers  came  the  thought  of 
remembering  in  this  grateful  way  their  Confederate  dead,  they 
paid  tribute  also  to  the  unmarked  graves  of  the  Union  soldiers. 
The  news  of  this  gracious  courtesy  telegraphed  through  the 
North  was  one  of  the  first  incidents  to  revive  fraternal  feeling 
between  the  sections.  In  thousands  of  homes  was  the  thought 
that  possibly  it  was  the  grave  of  our  lost  one  thus  remembered 
by  our  Southern  sisters.  The  union  of  our  people,  their  common 
devotion  to  our  flag  and  country  received  their  baptism  of  fire 
when  Theodore  Roosevelt,  Fitzhugh  Lee,  and  Joe  Wheeler  fought 
together  under  Old  Glory  meeting  the  common  foe. 

We  are  astonished  at  the  progress  and  development  of  the  free 
States  since  the  Civil  War,  but  the  blessings  which  have  come  to 
the  slave  States  by  the  abolition  of  slavery  are  infinitely  greater. 
Here  are  a  few  eloquent  figures :  Their  population  has  increased 
from  eleven  to  twenty-two  millions;  their  exports  and  imports, 
from  two  hundred  and  twelve  to  five  hundred  and  thirty-one  mil- 
lions ;  their  cotton  crop,  which  it  was  thought  could  be  raised  only 
by  slave  labor,  from  two  millions,  six  hundred  thousand  bales  to 
twelve  millions  two  hundred  thousand;  they  have  now  seven 
millions  six  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  cotton  spindles  in  opera- 
tion as  against  none  in  1870,  they  now  consume  two  millions  of 
cotton  bales  in  their  own  mills  as  against  none  at  the  close  of  the 
Civil  War,  their  bank  deposits  have  increased  since  1870  from 
eighteen  millions  to  three  hundred  millions;  the  mileage  of  their 
railroads  from  twelve  thousand  to  fifty-six  thousand;  the  value 
of  their  agricultural  products  from  two  hundred  and  twenty-seven 
millions  of  dollars  to  seven  hundred  and  twenty-one  millions ;  the 
value  of  their  manufactures  from  two  hundred  and  seventy-eight 
millions  to  twelve  hundred  millions;  the  value  of  their  cotton 
manufactures  from  eleven  millions  to  ninety-five  millions  and 


250  ORATIONS  AND  MEMORIAL  ADDRESSES 

their  pig  iron,  in  tons,  from  a  hundred  and  thirty  thousand  to 
two  millions  and  a  half. 

This  annual  increment  means  an  addition  to  wealth  and  pros- 
perity in  every  department  of  created  industry  such  as  no  com- 
munity similarly  situated  has  ever  even  approximately  enjoyed. 
The  imagination  is  paralyzed  in  the  effort  to  grasp  the  full  effect 
in  the  future  of  corresponding  growth.  The  lesson  it  enforces 
for  us  to-night  is  the  inestimable  value  of  liberty  and  union,  and 
the  mighty  debt  we  owe  to  those  who  preserved  the  Union  and 
made  possible  these  marvelous  results  and  unequalled  opportu- 
nities. 

The  world  was  thrilled  yesterday  as  it  has  not  been  since 
Trafalgar  at  the  astounding  victory  of  Admiral  Togo.  Coupled 
with  almost  equal  successes  on  land  of  the  Japanese  armies  under 
General  Oyama  there  enters,  with  the  peace  which  must  speedily 
come,  a  new  power  into  the  family  of  nations  with  racial,  tradi- 
tional and  religious  conditions  differing  widely  from  all  the 
others.  The  Orient,  whose  markets  have  been  the  contention  of 
all  the  great  industrial  powers,  is  to  fall  under  the  dominating 
influence  of  an  oriental  government.  The  Japanese  are  a  free 
people  with  a  constitutional  and  representative  government,  free 
press  and  universal  education,  and  with  a  fiery  and  devoted  pa- 
triotism which  reckons  that  life  glorious  which  is  sacrificed  for 
the  country.  The  Russian  conditions  are  reversed.  The  spirit 
of  the  Japanese  army  and  navy  was  our  spirit  during  the  Civil 
War — a  love  for  country,  union,  and  liberty  which  reckoned  not 
the  cost  but  sought  only  their  triumph. 

In  the  Union  army  fought  side  by  side  the  native  born  and 
the  naturalized  citizen,  but  we  must  not  be  blind  to  the  fact  that 
in  the  last  ten  years  the  emigration  to  our  shores  has  changed  in 
character  and  quality  and  enormously  increased  in  quantity.  The 
governments  of  the  Old  World  and  every  parish  in  those  coun- 
tries are  engaged  in  dumping  upon  us  their  incapables,  their 
vicious,  and  their  burdens.  At  the  rate  of  a  million  a  year  the 
immigrants  are  pouring  through  our  ports  into  our  country.  The 
feeble  efforts  to  sift  the  unworthy  after  arrival  and  deport  them 
accomplishes  little,  there  must  be  speedily  a  system  of  inspection, 
investigation,  registration,  and  certification  on  the  other  side 
which  will  halt  the  pauper,  the  diseased,  and  the  criminal  before 
they  start.     No  appropriation  which  would  be  sufficient  to  meet 


GRAND  ARMY  OF  THE  REPUBLIC       251 

this  evil  would  be  an  extravagance,  but  rather  a  protection  greater 
than  many  battleships.  The  Republic  which  the  Union  soldiers 
gained  for  us,  if  it  is  to  continue,  with  all  its  liberties,  opportuni- 
ties, laws,  order  and  happiness  unimpaired,  must  protect  and 
maintain  as  a  most  sacred  duty  the  high  quality  of  its  citizenship. 
Our  first  revolution  was  led  to  victory  by  the  foremost  man  of  all 
the  world  and  of  all  time.  Washington  needs  no  eulogy.  His 
name  and  fame  are  the  choicest  possessions  of  mankind.  Our 
second  revolution  was  led  by  a  man  widely  different  from  the 
Father  of  his  Country.  A  plain  representative  of  the  plain 
people.  For  the  problems  to  be  solved  in  his  time,  the  perils  to  be 
met,  and  the  difficulties  to  be  overcome  he  stood  in  the  same  su- 
preme relation  to  his  generation  as  did  Washington  to  the  Revo- 
lution. The  Fourth  of  July  tells  us  the  story  of  Washington, 
Memorial  Day  of  Lincoln.  I  can  picture  the  Grand  Army,  who 
have  joined  the  majority,  led  once  more  by  Grant  and  Sherman 
and  Sheridan,  passing  in  shadowy  procession  before  Lincoln  and 
sending  over  spirit  wires  their  cheers  and  benedictions  this  day 
to  their  comrades  on  earth. 


DEDICATION  OF  HALL  OF  FAME 


ADDRESS  AT  THE  HALL  OF  FAME,  NEW  YORK  UNIVERSITY,  UNIVER- 
SITY HEIGHTS,  MAY  30,  I9OI. 

Ladies  and  Gentlemen  :  "Victory,  or  the  Abbey !"  was  the 
cry  with  which  Nelson  began  one  of  his  great  battles.  It  con- 
densed in  a  sentence  the  ambition  of  the  ages:  to  die  for  one's 
country  and  find  glory  and  immortality  in  the  national  Pantheon. 
The  Scandinavian  Viking,  whose  dying  vision  saw  revealed  the 
Valhalla  of  his  hero  gods  among  whom  he  was  to  dwell  eternally, 
departed  under  the  same  inspiring  passion  as  the  Iroquois  chief- 
tain singing  his  death  song,  surrounded  by  heaps  of  slain  enemies. 
It  is  doubtful  if  in  any  period  but  ours  the  great  statesman,  writer 
or  artist  ranked  with  the  soldier.  It  is  the  distinction  of  our  time 
that  with  advancing  civilization  we  dedicate,  beside  the  panel 
devoted  to  the  warrior,  others  with  equal  honor  in  the  Hall  of 
Fame  for  authors  and  editors,  rulers  and  statesmen,  judges  and 
lawyers,  preachers  and  theologians,  philanthropists,  educators, 
musicians,  painters  and  sculptors,  physicians  and  surgeons,  mis- 
sionaries and  explorers.  It  has  been  reserved  for  the  close  of  the 
nineteenth  century  to  elevate  to  lasting  distinction  those  leaders  of 
industries  whose  labors  have  benefited  mankind,  the  scientists,  in- 
ventors, engineers,  architects,  and  men  of  business.  This  colon- 
nade gives  to  creative  genius  equal  rank  and  honor  with  the 
destructive  talent  which  has  ever  commanded  the  admiration  of 
the  world. 

The  people  of  all  countries  have  been  celebrating  the  events 
for  each  of  the  last  hundred  years — the  most  remarkable  era  of 
construction  and  achievement.  Even  its  wars  resulted  in  the  uni- 
fication, under  one  government,  of  kindred  races,  the  enlargement 
of  popular  liberty  and  marvelous  material  development.  The 
ringing  out  of  the  nineteenth  century  was  accompanied  by  shout- 
ing and  hallelujahs  over  victories  which  had  subdued  the  powers 
of  the  earth,  the  waters,  and  the  air  to  the  service  of  man,  and 
an  equally  beneficent  evolution  in  human  rights.  It  was  a  happy 
thought  which  moved  the  donor  of  this  Hall  of  Fame,  in  the 

252 


DEDICATION  OF  HALL  OF  FAME  253 

midst  of  these  rejoicings,  to  found  a  temple  to  enshrine  the  memo- 
rials of  the  architects  of  this  triumph;  the  supreme  intelligences 
whose  labors  and  initiative  have  caused  the  nineteenth  to  stand 
out  conspicuous  and  unapproachable  in  grandeur  among  the  cen- 
turies. It  is  properly  built  in  the  metropolis  of  the  continent,  the 
great  city  in  which  are  rapidly  concentrating  world-wide  influ- 
ences. Under  the  protection  and  care  of  a  vigorous  and  growing 
institution  of  liberal  learning  its  purposes  will  be  kept  lofty  and 
pure,  and  its  educational  value  enhanced.  Standing  on  the  banks 
of  the  noble  Hudson  and  at  the  gateway  of  the  New  World,  it 
welcomes  from  every  section  of  the  country  all  worthy  to  sit 
as  peers  in  the  company  of  the  immortals  who  form  its  first  parlia- 
ment. There  has  been  the  broadest  catholicity  of  judgment  and 
no  passions  or  prejudices  of  sectarianisms,  parties,  or  creeds 
among  the  judges.  The  action  of  the  tribunal  is  a  remarkable 
exhibit  of  the  disappearance  of  the  bitterness  of  the  Civil  War. 
Though  a  large  majority  of  the  electors  were  from  the  North, 
General  Lee  is  placed  beside  General  Grant,  and  Lincoln  received 
every  vote  from  the  South  save  one. 

The  American  who  traces  his  ancestors  to  the  British  Isles 
and  visits  for  the  first  time  Westminster  Abbey,  experiences  a 
singular  sensation  of  awe  and  pride  as  he  wanders  through  its 
aisles  and  chapels ;  but  he  is  mortified  and  grieved  to  find,  among 
the  memorials  of  the  great  who  have  given  imperishable  renown 
to  our  English-speaking  people,  so  many  statues  and  monuments 
to  phantom  reputations  of  the  past,  who  are  in  the  present  for- 
gotten nonenities.  A  single  act  that  won  the  popular  applause 
of  the  hour  has  given  a  favorite  of  this  fickle  choice  a  place  among 
the  mighty.  Just  as  the  money  changers  and  those  who  sold 
doves  were  driven  from  the  sacred  enclosures  of  the  Temple  at 
Jerusalem  these  marbles  should  be  thrown  out  of  the  grand  old 
Abbey  and  transplanted  to  the  churchyards  where  rest  the  monu- 
ments of  their  kindred,  or  burned  in  the  lime  kiln  of  oblivion. 

Such  desecrations  are  made  impossible  here.  The  prohibition 
of  the  consideration  of  any  one  until  ten  years  after  his  death 
removes  the  danger  from  the  errors  of  contemporary  passion  or 
enthusiasm.  The  selection  and  number  of  the  judges  constitute 
a  trained  and  impartial  tribunal.  The  people  of  the  United  States 
are  the  nominators  and  one  hundred  divided  among  college  presi- 
dents and  educators,  professors  of  history  and  scientists,  publi- 


254  ORATIONS  AND  MEMORIAL  ADDRESSES 

cists,  editors  and  authors,  the  Chief  Justice  of  the  Supreme  Court 
of  the  United  States,  and  the  head  of  the  highest  court  in  each 
of  the  several  commonwealths  of  the  Union,  are  the  electors. 
The  gentlemen  upon  whom  has  devolved  the  first  selection  have 
found  in  the  wide  field  open  to  their  choice  only  twenty-nine 
whom  a  majority  thought  fit  to  fill  the  panels  of  this  Hall.  There 
may  be  disappointment  and  mortification  that  after  three  hundred 
years  of  settlement  in  our  country,  and  one  hundred  of  national 
life,  the  harvest  should  be  so  small.  But  our  situation  was 
unique  and  original.  We  were  not  a  conquering  people,  absorb- 
ing and  adopting  the  civilization,  arts,  and  accumulations  of  a 
subject  nation.  By  slow,  laborious,  and  perilous  processes  the 
primeval  forests  had  to  be  cut  and  the  wilderness  subdued  for  the 
settlement  and  support  of  the  colonists.  Savages  and  soil  were 
inhospitable  to  these  scattered  and  adventurous  families  seeking 
homes  and  liberty  of  conscience  in  an  unknown  and  unexplored 
land  across  the  sea.  In  the  experiments  of  new  forms  of  govern- 
ment and  the  turbulent  development  of  free  institutions  there  was 
neither  thought,  nor  opportunity,  nor  time  for  art  or  literature  or 
science,  or  for  those  battles  which  decide  history  and  the  fate  of 
nations. 

Counting  the  colonial  period  from  the  first  settlement  down 
to  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  the  judges  have  found  but 
one  immortal.  Fighting  Indians  had  not  created  a  great  soldier ; 
the  rude  forms  of  agriculture  and  the  hardships  of  the  frontier 
bred  a  race  of  independent,  vigorous,  hardy,  self-reliant,  and 
supremely  courageous  men  and  women;  but  there  was  neither 
incentive  nor  audience  for  high  intellectual  effort,  except  in  the 
church.  The  minister  was  both  spiritual  and  temporal  leader  and 
guide.  To  the  lofty  ideals  and  high  endeavors  of  these  primitive 
clergymen  posterity  is  deeply  indebted.  The  biggest  brain,  the 
most  original  thinker,  and  the  most  powerful  writer  of  the  colon- 
ial time  was  Jonathan  Edwards.  He  fitly  and  alone  represents 
here  the  foundations  of  our  original  ideas,  education  and  empire. 

In  the  story  of  nations  there  have  generally  been  seven  hun- 
dred years  from  the  formation  of  government  to  the  golden  age 
of  letters  and  art.  The  tributes  here  are  all,  save  that  to  Jona- 
than Edwards,  to  the  genius  of  our  first  century.  We  can  com- 
pare these  names  with  the  greatest  of  all  time,  and  without 
boasting  but  upon  the  sure  results  of  the  most  critical  analysis 


DEDICATION  OF  HALL  OF  FAME  255 

of  the  elements  of  fame,  proudly  claim  a  place  in  the  front  rank 
for  our  military  and  naval  heroes ;  for  our  statesmen  and  jurists ; 
for  our  authors  and  inventors ;  for  our  preachers  and  philanthro- 
pists. We  are  yet  to  produce  the  picture,  the  poem,  the  opera  or 
oratorio  worthy  the  great  masters.  For  these  there  must  be  the 
background  of  centuries,  mellowed  by  time  and  traditions. 

If  the  Viking  could  come  from  his  Valhalla,  the  Areopagite 
from  beneath  the  temples  at  Athens,  the  arbiter  elegantise  from 
the  ruins  of  Rome,  the  medieval  knight  from  his  armor,  Fred- 
erick from  Potsdam,  or  Napoleon  from  the  Invalides,  to  view 
these  our  heroes,  they  would  have  only  contempt  for  this  develop- 
ment of  democracy.  The  inventor  of  the  application  of  steam  to 
navigation,  of  the  electric  telegraph  and  of  the  cotton  gin,  the 
artisans  who  were  in  their  time  and  to  their  world  the  herd  or 
mass  born  to  bear  the  burdens  and  work  for  the  luxuries  of  their 
masters,  are  here  crowned  with  the  fadeless  laurels  which  en- 
circle the  brows  of  the  conquerors  and  rulers  of  the  world.  Eli 
Whitney  transformed  half  a  continent  from  a  wilderness  to  one 
of  the  most  productive  of  territories ;  Fulton  made  possible  trans- 
portation by  water  and  land,  which  have  given  to  our  country  its 
prosperous  population  and  vigorous  States,  and  the  leadership  in 
the  industrial  competition  of  nations;  and  Morse  added  new 
strength  to  our  Union  by  discoveries  in  electrical  power,  which, 
from  his  initiative,  have  enormously  developed  the  resources  of 
his  country  and  given  opportunity  and  employment  to  his  country- 
men. 

The  emancipation  of  labor  has  been  followed  by  its  recogni- 
tion and  the  dignity  of  its  function  in  human  affairs ;  and  now  a 
pathway  is  open  up  the  difficult  ascent  of  Parnassus.  The 
triumphs  of  industrial  genius  have  created  conditions  by  which 
millions  can  live  in  comfort  and  hope  where  thousands  dwelt  in 
poverty  and  despair.  They  have  made  possible  the  gigantic 
fortunes  which  are  the  wonder  of  our  day.  But  the  material 
revolution  and  its  rich  results  thus  emphasized  have  diverted  the 
mind,  culture,  and  ambition  of  ingenuous  youth  to  paths  of  gain 
rather  than  fame,  unless,  under  a  new  code,  gain  in  large  measure 
be  fame.  The  dollar,  or  its  eager  pursuit,  weighs  down  the 
wings  of  genius  and  prevents  its  flight  to  the  lofty  heights  where 
congregate  the  Homers  and  Shakespeares,  Miltons  and  Byrons, 
the  Michael  Angelos  and  the  Raphaels  and  their  peers.     Our 


256  ORATIONS  AND  MEMORIAL  ADDRESSES 

time  does  not  produce  their  equals.  We  have  now  no  Tenny- 
sons,  nor  Longfellows,  nor  Hawthornes,  nor  Emersons.  Per- 
haps it  is  because  our  Michael  Angelos  are  planning  tunnels  under 
rivers  and  through  mountains  for  the  connection  of  vast  systems 
of  railways,  and  our  Raphaels  are  devising  some  novel  methods 
for  the  utilization  of  electrical  power;  our  Shakespeares  are 
forming  gigantic  combinations  of  corporate  bodies,  our  Tenny- 
sons  are  giving  rein  to  fancy  and  imagination  in  wild  speculations 
in  stocks,  and  our  Hawthornes  and  Emersons  have  abandoned 
the  communings  with  and  revelations  of  the  spirit  and  soul  which 
lift  their  readers  to  a  vision  of  the  higher  life  and  the  joy  of  its 
inspiration,  to  exploit  mines  and  factories. 

When  this  period  of  evolution  is  over,  and  nations  and  com- 
munities have  become  adjusted  to  normal  conditions,  the  fever 
and  the  passion  of  the  race  for  quick  wealth  and  enormous  riches 
will  be  over.  Then  the  grove,  the  academy,  and  the  study  will 
again  become  tenanted  with  philosophers,  poets,  historians,  and 
interpreters  of  God  in  man.  Unless  this  shall  happen,  then  let 
the  luxuries  and  opportunities,  evanescent  earthly  pleasures,  and 
the  disappearance  after  death  which  come  from  leadership  in 
business  be  the  rewards  of  the  successful ;  but  reserve  the  Temple 
of  Fame  for  those  only  whose  deeds  and  thoughts  are  the  inherit- 
ance, education,  inspiration,  and  aspiration  of  endless  generations. 

A  careful  statistician  has  proved  that  more  than  one-half  the 
famous  men  of  letters  in  Europe  belong  to  the  upper  and  middle 
classes,  and  that  all  of  the  historians  and  a  large  majority  of  the 
writers  and  leaders  of  thought  in  England  are  of  its  people  of 
leisure;  while  in  the  French  Academy  of  Sciences,  during  the 
period  from  1666  to  1870,  out  of  ninety-two  foreign  associates 
only  six  were  of  the  working  class.  Of  the  twenty-nine  selected 
by  the  judges  for  this  Hall  of  Fame  not  more  than  six  can  be 
said  to  have  enjoyed  the  advantages  of  fortune.  The  handicap 
of  class  and  privilege  which  it  is  almost  impossible  to  overcome 
and  is  rarely  surmounted,  prevents  any  adequate  representation 
from  the  working  people  among  the  leaders  in  government,  the 
army,  the  navy,  letters  or  art  in  Europe.  The  reverse  is  true  in 
the  United  States. 

Through  the  opportunites  of  free  education  in  our  common 
and  high  schools,  the  children  from  the  home  of  the  laborer  and 
the  cottage  of  the  artisan  are  continually  rising  to  distinction  in 


DEDICATION  OF  HALL  OF  FAME  257 

literature  and  the  professions  and  in  the  control  of  great  industrial 
organizations.  The  poverty  of  the  peasant  with  its  barriers  and 
hopelessness  is  unknown  to  our  civilization.  The  log  cabin,  the 
narrow  quarters,  the  straitened  circumstances,  the  daily  hardships 
and  sacrifices  of  comforts,  which  were  the  conditions  attending 
the  youth  of  nearly  all  our  distinguished  men,  were  not  the  grind- 
ing poverty  of  the  old  world.  By  the  blaze  of  the  fireplaces  at 
night,  brainy  and  ambitious  boys,  tired  in  body  from  the  day's 
toil,  but  fresh  in  mind,  learn  the  lessons  of  hope  and  careers  in 
the  lives  of  those  living  once  like  themselves  and  who  were  in 
after  years  honored  and  successful  in  public  life,  upon  the  bench, 
in  the  pulpit,  in  journalism,  in  libraries,  in  art,  and  several  of 
them  Presidents  of  the  United  States. 

It  is  difficult  to  define  fame.  Reputation  is  often  mistaken 
for  it.  The  one  lasts  forever  and  grows  brighter  with  the  centu- 
ries ;  the  other  sinks  into  oblivion  with  the  temporary  conditions 
upon  which  it  rests.  Fame  must  not  be  confounded  with  noto- 
riety, which  may  be  connected  with  acts  of  eternal  but  infamous 
memory,  as  that  of  the  egotist  who  fired  the  temple  at  Ephesus, 
or  the  fiend  who  killed  President  Garfield.  Our  Civil  War  was 
peculiarly  distinguished  for  making  many-  reputations  which  con- 
temporaries believed  enduring.  But  to-day  has  forgotten  yester- 
day and  treads  on  the  heels  of  to-morrow,  to  be  left  behind  in 
turn  by  its  successors.  Events  of  absorbing  interest  occupy  the 
imagination  of  the  present,  which  must  be  illumined  by  a  light 
other  than  its  own  to  help  it  out  of  the  darkness,  or  it  does  not 
recognize  the  past.  Homer,  Demosthenes,  Socrates,  and  Prax- 
iteles illustrate  this  in  Greece,  and  Caesar  and  Horace  in  Rome, 
while  in  medieval  and  modern  Europe  their  names  are  fewer  than 
a  score. 

The  process  of  the  elimination  of  reputations  from  current 
knowledge  grows  more  destructive  with  each  generation  until 
cycles  are  marked  by  one  survival.  The  influence  of  that  one  is 
felt  in  our  patriotism,  in  our  nation's  existence  and  power,  in  our 
mental  growth  and  expansion,  in  our  incentives  to  thought  and 
action,  in  the  spark  which  fires  our  genius,  or  the  divine  touch 
which  frees  our  spirit  and  soul  from  the  harsh  materialism  of 
daily  cares,  and  brings  us  into  communion  with  the  higher  life — 
its  aims,  its  associations,  its  victories,  and  its  joys. 

Great  men  and  women  make  history,  and  their  lives  distin- 
Vol.  1—17 


258  ORATIONS  AND  MEMORIAL  ADDRESSES 

guish  countries  and  centuries.  Let  the  court  meet  here  every 
decade  and  select  for  this  Hall  of  Fame  those  whom  they  believe 
deserve  most  of  the  Republic.  Let  there  be  gathered  in  the 
museum  the  precious  relics,  statues,  and  memorials  of  the  elect. 
The  ceremony  with  each  repetition  will  enlist  a  larger  interest  and 
closer  scrutiny  of  worth.  It  will  make  more  difficult  the  task  of 
the  judges,  and  more  certain  the  permanence  of  their  choice.  It 
will  cultivate  the  study  and  with  it  the  emulation  of  greatness. 

In  the  cemeteries  of  France  graves  are  leased  for  periods  of 
five,  ten,  twenty,  or  fifty  years  and  in  perpetuity.  As  the  terms 
of  the  lessees  expire,  the  bones  are  dug  up  and  dumped  into  the 
common  receptacle  to  make  room  for  newer  tenants.  So  in  time 
in  this  Hall  of  Fame  winnowing  will  attend  selection.  Only  the 
tenants  who  by  the  judgment  of  posterity  hold  their  titles  in  per- 
petuity will  remain,  and  they  will  have  fame. 

Of  these  twenty-nine,  who  will  be  left  a  thousand  years  hence? 
The  rail  splitter  who  became  President  of  the  United  States,  eman- 
cipated the  slave,  saved  the  Union,  and  in  a  speech  of  ten  minutes 
at  Gettysburg  set  a  classic  in  the  oratory  of  his  country  which  con- 
densed the  philosophy  and  pathos  of  the  Civil  War,  will  be  im- 
mortal as  Abraham  Lincoln.  There  is  one  character  here  which 
has  stood  the  test  of  time  and  grown  brighter  with  the  years. 
Washington  has  no  predecessors,  contemporaries,  or  successors. 
By  the  common  judgment  of  mankind  he  is  the  noblest  example 
of  all  countries  and  all  ages  of  human  excellence.  If  in  our  hun- 
dred and  twenty-five  years  of  national  existence  no  other  man 
had  risen  to  the  realms  of  fame,  our  country's  contribution  to  the 
marvelous  nineteenth  century  would  be  complete  and  supreme  in 
George  Washington. 


MEMORIAL  OF  GOVERNOR  FENTON 


address  at  the  memorial  service  in  honor  of  governor 
reuben  e.  fenton,  by  the  legislature  of  the  state  of 
new  york  in  the  capitol  at  albany,  april  27,  1 887. 

Gentlemen  of  the  Senate  and  Assembly  of  the  State 
of  New  York  :  New  York  has,  as  a  rule,  been  remarkably  for- 
tunate in  her  Governors.  Many  of  them  have  been  statesmen  of 
national  and  commanding  influence.  Two  of  them  have  served 
as  Presidents  and  two  as  Vice-presidents  of  the  United  States 
and  two  others  were  the  choice  of  their  party  for  the  Chief  Magis- 
tracy of  the  Republic.  Their  influence  upon  the  policy  and  course 
of  government  has  been  potential. 

It  is  proper  in  this  place  to  speak  only  of  those  who  have  joined 
the  majority  beyond  the  grave.  There  is  no  more  heroic  figure 
in  Revolutionary  annals  than  our  first  Governor,  George  Clinton. 
Within  an  hour  after  his  inauguration  he  was  marching  to  the 
post  of  duty  and  danger  in  front  of  the  enemy.  His  obstinate 
courage,  wise  generalship,  and  great  popularity  did  much  to  keep 
New  York,  full  as  the  colony  was  of  royalists,  loyal  to  liberty 
and  the  Continental  Congress.  John  Jay  did  more  than  any  one 
save  Alexander  Hamilton  to  bind  the  discordant  colonies  into  a 
harmonious  confederacy.  DeWitt  Clinton,  by  his  foresight  and 
energy,  made  New  York  the  Empire  State,  and  her  chief  city  the 
commercial  metropolis  of  the  continent.  Martin  Van  Buren  for 
nearly  a  quarter  of  a  century  was  the  actual  ruler  of  the  Repub- 
lic, through  his  control  and  management  of  the  dominant  party, 
and  he  gave  political  form  and  substance  to  the  anti-slavery  sen- 
timent. William  L.  Marcy,  United  States  Senator  and  twice  a 
Cabinet  Minister,  has  left  an  indelible  impress  upon  the  history 
of  his  time.  Silas  Wright  ranks  among  our  ideal  statesmen.  He 
possessed  the  loftiest  character  and  most  signal  ability.  His  am- 
bitions were  always  subordinated  to  the  public  welfare.  He  could 
calmly  lay  aside  the  certainty  of  the  Presidency  when  his  duty,  as 
he  understood  it,  called  him  to  serve  in  more  hazardous  but  minor 
fields,  and  he  was  in  every  sense  a  modern  Cincinnatus.  The  name 

259 


260  ORATIONS  AND  MEMORIAL  ADDRESSES 

of  William  H.  Seward  will  be  among  the  few  of  his  generation 
to  survive  in  coming  ages.  He  was  the  political  philosopher  of 
his  period  who  alone  of  his  contemporaries  grasped  the  full  mean- 
ing and  inevitable  result  of  the  vast  moral  questions  that  agi- 
tated the  country.  His  matchless  genius  for  affairs,  his  unruf- 
fled judgment  in  the  midst  of  trial  and  danger,  kept  that  peace 
with  the  world  without  which  alone  enabled  nationality  to  win 
its  victory  within.  His  speeches  and  state  papers  will  be  the 
exhaustless  treasury  from  which  the  statesmen  of  the  future 
will  draw  their  best  lessons  and  inspiration.  Within  our  im- 
mediate memory  the  tablets  upon  our  gubernatorial  mausoleum 
recall  the  public  services  of  John  A.  King,  John  A.  Dix,  Edwin 
D.  Morgan,  Horatio  Seymour,  Reuben  E.  Fenton,  and  Samuel 
J.  Tilden.  No  other  State  has  been  governed  by  an  equal 
number  of  men  of  national  influence  and  fame.  It  is  therefore 
eminently  proper  and  wise  that  the  Legislature  should  commem- 
orate, and  by  imposing  ceremonial  perpetuate,  the  history  and 
characters  of  its  departed  chief  magistrates. 

The  one  in  whose  honor  we  are  here  assembled  worthily  ranks 
with  the  best  of  his  predecessors  in  office.  Repeated  and  long- 
continued  promotions  to  places  of  trust  by  popular  suffrage  are 
cumulative  evidence  of  merit  and  distinction.  The  opportunity 
to  rise  from  humble  station  to  lofty  positions  is  the  common 
heritage  of  all,  but  they  only  successfully  climb  the  slippery 
and  perilous  ascent,  gathering  fresh  strength  at  each  station 
for  bolder  efforts,  who  are  easily  the  leaders  of  their  fellows. 
The  early  settlers  of  western  New  York  were  a  hardy  and  en- 
terprising race,  and  their  children,  roughing  it  in  log  cabins, 
forest  clearings,  and  frontier  experiences,  were  by  heredity  and 
education  state-builders.  They  created  farms  out  of  the  wil- 
derness, formed  communities,  and  organized  government.  It 
is  easier  for  a  man  of  ability  to  get  on  in  a  new  country  and 
with  fresh  surroundings  than  in  the  neighborhood  where  he  was 
born.  Where  every  one  has  known  him  from  childhood,  he 
often  is  handicapped  by  the  unforgotten  frivolities  of  youth, 
and  reaches  middle  life  before  he  has  outgrown  the  feeling  that 
he  is  still  a  boy ;  while,  as  a  new  settler,  he  starts  at  once  at  the 
level  of  his  ascertained  capabilities.  It  is  the  peculiar  distinc- 
tion of  Mr.  Fenton  that  he  overcame  these  prejudices  before 
he  was  of  age;  that  he  became  the  choice  of  his  fellow-citizens 


MEMORIAL  OF  GOVERNOR  FENTON  261 

for  positions  of  trust  as  soon  as  he  obtained  his  majority;  and, 
passing  his  life  at  his  birthplace,  earned,  at  a  period  when  most 
young  men  are  unknown,  the  confidence  of  the  people  among 
whom  he  had  grown  up,  and  carried  it  with  him  to  his  grave. 
He  saw  western  New  York  expand  from  the  forest  into  one  of 
the  most  beautiful,  highly  cultivated,  and  richest  sections  of  the 
State,  teeming  with  an  intelligent  and  prosperous  population, 
which  had  founded  cities,  formed  villages,  erected  schools,  en- 
dowed colleges,  and  planted  by  every  stream  flourishing  manu- 
factories ;  and  he  remained  throughout  all  this  growth  and  until? 
his  death  the  foremost  and  most  distinguished  citizen.  He  was 
seven  times  supervisor  of  his  town,  and  three  times  chairman 
of  the  County  Board,  for  five  terms  a  member  of  Congress, 
twice  Governor  of  this  great  State,  United  States  Senator,  and 
the  choice  of  New  York  for  Vice-president  in  the  convention 
which  first  nominated  General  Grant. 

This  proud  career  was  not  helped  by  accident,  or  luck,  or 
wealth,  or  family,  or  powerful  friends.  He  was,  in  its  best  sense, 
both  the  architect  and  builder  of  his  own  fortunes.  When  a 
lad  of  seventeen  his  father  failed  in  business,  and  the  boy 
dropped  his  studies  and  professional  aspirations  to  support  the 
family  and  retrieve  its  credit.  Self-reliant  but  prudent,  cour- 
ageous but  cautious,  his  audacity  subject  to  reason,  he  quickly 
measured  his  powers  and  then  boldly  struck  out  for  himself. 
He  traversed  the  virgin  forests,  selecting  with  unerring  judg- 
ment the  most  productive  tracts,  and  for  years  following  his  life 
was  spent  in  logging  camps  and  in  piloting  his  rafts  down  the 
Allegheny  and  Ohio  rivers.  The  adventures,  exposure,  and 
perils  of  the  work  gave  him  an  iron  constitution  and  knowledge 
of  men,  and  developed  his  rare  capacity  for  business.  An  om- 
nivorous and  intelligent  reader,  he  became,  by  the  light  of  blaz- 
ing fires  in  the  forest  and  pine  knots  in  the  cabin  on  the  rafts,  well 
educated  and  widely  informed.  At  thirty-one  he  had  paid  his 
father's  debts  and  secured  a  comfortable  competence  for  him- 
self. Then  came  the  inevitable  internal  struggle  with  himself 
of  the  man  who  has  early  in  life  achieved  an  independence.  He 
feels  his  strength,  the  ardor  and  fire  of  vigorous  manhood  en- 
large his  vision,  and  he  sees  no  limits  to  his  ambitions.  The 
divergent  roads  to  untold  wealth  on  the  one  side,  or  honors  and 
fame  on  the  other,  are  before  him,  and  to  lead  the  crowd  his 


262  ORATIONS  AND  MEMORIAL  ADDRESSES 

best  energies  will  be  required  for  whichever  path  he  selects.  Mr. 
Fenton  determined  to  devote  his  future  to  the  public  service, 
and  henceforward  his  life  became  identified  with  the  history  of 
his  times. 

He  had  always  been  a  Democrat,  but  the  great  question 
which  was  to  destroy  the  Whig  and  divide  the  Democratic  Party, 
met  him  at  the  outset  of  his  congressional  career.  Stephen  A. 
Douglas  had  introduced  into  the  bill  organizing  the  territories  of 
Kansas  and  Nebraska  a  section  repealing  that  portion  of  the 
Missouri  Compromise  of  1820  which  forever  prohibited  slav- 
ery in  the  new  territories  lying  north  of  latitude  thirty-six 
degrees  and  thirty  minutes.  In  a  moment  the  whole  country 
was  aflame.  The  slumbering  conscience  of  the  nation  awoke 
with  an  energy  which  rocked  pulpits  and  revolutionized  col- 
leges. The  oration,  the  tract,  and  the  madly  exciting  novel 
were  potent  forces  in  the  storm.  The  young  Congressman 
must  choose,  and  at  once,  between  his  convictions  and  the  cau- 
cus. He  did  not  hesitate.  He  was  never  afraid  of  his  beliefs, 
and  faith  and  courage  with  him  always  stood  together.  His 
maiden  speech  was  for  the  inviolable  preservation  of  the  boun- 
daries so  solemnly  set  by  a  former  generation  to  the  encroach- 
ments of  slavery.  It  was  the  first  speech  made  from  either  side 
in  the  House  of  Representatives  against  the  pending  crime;  it 
was  made  by  a  member  of  the  party  then  dominant  in  the  Gov- 
ernment ;  and  its  clear  notes  of  independence  and  defiance  rallied 
about  him  a  determined  band  of  young  Democratic  representa- 
tives. From  that  day  he  was  one  of  the  leaders  in  the  formation, 
and  afterward  in  the  conduct,  of  the  Republican  Party.  When 
Mr.  Seward  announced  the  death  of  the  Whig,  and  christened 
the  young  party  Republican ;  and  when  at  its  first  State  Conven- 
tion there  fraternized  under  that  name  old  Whigs  and  Demo- 
crats, Barnburners  of  '48,  Free  Soilers,  and  Liberty  Party  men 
of  the  days  of  martyrdom,  Reuben  E.  Fenton  was  unanimously 
elected  their  presiding  officer. 

It  is  difficult  now  to  realize  the  duties  and  responsibilities  of 
a  member  of  Congress  during  the  Civil  War.  He  was  investi- 
gating estimates  and  making  appropriations  of  such  appalling 
magnitude,  that  he  had  no  precedents  to  guide  him  and  no  stan- 
dards for  comparison.  Amidst  the  tension  and  strain  of  great 
battles,  of  victories  and  defeats,  of  the  result  oft-times  in  doubt, 


MEMORIAL  OF  GOVERNOR  FENTON  263 

and  the  Capitol  itself  frequently  in  peril,  he  was  uprooting  by 
legislation  wrongs  and  abuses  which  had  been  embedded  in  the 
constitutions,  the  laws,  the  decisions  of  the  courts,  as  well  as  the 
approving  judgment  of  the  people,  since  the  formation  of  the 
Government,  and  preparing  for  the  reconstruction  of  a  new  upon 
the  ruins  of  the  old  Republic.  Fundamental  principles  of  human 
rights  were  pressing  for  immediate  and  final  settlement,  while 
the  carnage,  slaughter,  and  suffering  without,  and  the  financial 
and  administrative  perils  within,  the  Capitol  were  unparalleled  in 
the  experience  of  nations.  But,  widely  known  and  with  a  sym- 
pathetic heart,  he  was  counselor,  friend,  and  brother,  for  the 
mother  searching  for  her  dead,  for  wives  looking  for  loved  ones 
left  wounded  upon  the  field,  for  parents  seeking  furloughs  for 
their  boys  in  the  hospital,  that  they  might  carry  them  home  and 
tenderly  nurse  them  back  to  life  and  health ;  and  by  the  soldier's 
bedside  he  gave  relief,  encouragement,  and  strength,  or  received 
the  dying  message  and  the  last  embrace  to  be  faithfully  borne 
to  mourning  and  broken  households  in  the  peaceful  valleys  of  the 
distant  North.  There  were  many  men  in  Congress  of  command- 
ing eloquence  and  great  power  in  debate,  who  received  general 
attention  and  applause;  but  Mr.  Fenton  did  not  excel  in  either 
of  these  more  attractive  fields.  He  was  a  man  of  affairs — one 
of  those  clear-headed,  constructive  and  able  business  managers, 
whose  persistent  industry,  comprehensive  grasp  of  details,  and 
power  to  marshal  them  for  practical  results,  made  him  invalu- 
able in  committee,  where  legislation  is  perfected  and  all  impor- 
tant measures  are  prepared.  The  people  rarely  know  the  debt 
they  owe  to  the  careful,  plodding,  alert  members,  who,  ceaselessly 
working  in  committee-rooms,  with  no  reporters  to  herald  their 
achievements  and  no  place  in  the  Congressional  Record  for  their 
work,  detect  frauds  and  strangle  jobs;  mold  crudities  into  laws, 
and  develop  the  hidden  meaning  and  deep-laid  schemes  of  skilful 
and  deceptive  amendments;  ascertain  the  needs  of  government, 
and  devise  the  statutes  for  meeting  them.  They  are  the  reli- 
ance of  the  Cabinet  minister,  and  the  safety  of  parliamentary 
government.  There  are  always  three  classes  of  Congressmen: 
the  leaders  who  organize  the  forces  of  administration  or  oppo- 
sition, and  by  speeches  profound  or  magnetic  give  opinions  to 
their  party  and  educate  the  country  to  its  views;  the  able  and 
conscientious    committeeman    and    watchful   member;    and   the 


264  ORATIONS  AND  MEMORIAL  ADDRESSES 

drones  whose  public  usefulness  is  lost  between  yawns  and  naps. 
Mr.  Fenton  was  an  ideal  representative  of  the  second  type,  with 
some  of  the  qualities  of  the  first.  He  mastered  his  subject  so 
thoroughly,  and  understood  so  well  the  causes  and  effects  of 
pending  issues,  that  his  calm  and  lucid  statements  made  him, 
upon  the  floor,  a  strong  ally  and  a  dangerous  enemy.  His 
speeches  upon  pensions,  internal  improvements,  the  regulation 
of  emigration,  the  payment  of  bounties,  the  repeal  of  the  Fugi- 
tive Slave  Law,  and  the  financial  measures  for  carrying  on  the 
war,  and  funding  the  national  debt,  attest  the  extent  of  his  ac- 
quirements and  the  wisdom  of  his  views. 

But  his  distinction  during  this  period  was  that  he  came  to 
be  pre-eminently  recognized  as  the  "Soldiers'  Friend."  The  bill 
to  facilitate  the  granting  of  furloughs  and  discharges  to  disabled 
soldiers ;  the  bill  to  facilitate  the  payment  of  bounties  and  arrears 
of  pay  due  wounded  and  deceased  soldiers;  and  bills  granting 
pensions,  and  those  making  the  application  for  them  easy  and 
inexpensive,  were  among  the  results  of  his  patriotic  and  thought- 
ful interest.  He  kept  lonely  vigils  by  the  hospital  cots  at  night, 
and  by  day  was  ceaselessly  and  tirelessly  tramping  from  the 
War  and  Navy  Departments  to  the  Executive  Mansion.  The 
New  York  Soldiers'  Aid  Society,  in  recognition  of  his  eminent 
fitness  and  meritorious  services,  elected  him  its  president,  and 
the  beneficent  work  of  that  Society  is  recorded  in  grateful  hearts 
and  registered  by  happy  firesides  all  over  our  State.  When,  as 
Governor,  he  welcomed  home  the  returning  regiments  of  the 
disbanded  army,  the  formal  words  of  his  official  proclamation 
spoke  the  sentiments  which  had  guided  his  actions.  "Soldiers," 
said  he,  "your  State  thanks  you  and  gives  you  pledge  of  her 
lasting  gratitude.  You  have  elevated  her  dignity,  brightened 
her  renown,  and  enriched  her  history.  The  people  will  regard 
with  jealous  pride  your  welfare  and  honor,  not  forgetting  the 
widow,  the  fatherless,  and  those  who  were  dependent  upon  the 
fallen  hero." 

The  presidential  canvass  of  1864  was  one  of  the  most  in- 
teresting in  our  history.  The  radical  element  in  the  Republican 
Party  had  nominated  a  ticket  after  denouncing  President  Lin- 
coln because  he  was  too  slow  and  conservative.  Governor 
Horatio  Seymour,  while  voicing  the  thought  of  the  Democratic 
National  Convention,  as  its  Chairman,  in  one  of  the  most  able 


MEMORIAL  OF  GOVERNOR  FENTON  265 

and  masterly  of  speeches,  had  declared  that  Mr.  Lincoln's  ad- 
ministration had  been  a  series  of  costly  and  bloody  mistakes, 
that  under  his  guidance  the  war  had  been,  and  would  continue 
to  be,  a  failure.  To  carry  New  York  Mr.  Seymour  accepted 
a  renomination  for  Governor,  and  entered  upon  the  canvass  with 
his  accustomed  vigor  and  eloquence.  Whether  we  differ  from, 
or  sustain,  his  political  opinions,  we  must  all  admit  that  Horatio 
Seymour  was  one  of  the  most  brilliant  and  attractive  of  our 
New  York  statesmen.  The  purity  of  his  life,  his  unblemished 
character,  his  commanding  presence,  and  his  magnetism  upon 
the  platform,  made  him  the  idol  of  his  party  and  the  most  dan- 
gerous of  opponents.  It  was  vital  to  Mr.  Lincoln  and  his  ad- 
ministration, and  to  Mr.  Seward,  the  Chief  of  his  Cabinet,  that 
New  York  should  sustain  them,  and  repel  these  charges.  To 
meet  this  emergency,  and  conduct  this  campaign,  Reuben  E. 
Fenton  was  nominated  by  the  Republican  Convention  for  Gov- 
ernor. The  wisdom  of  the  choice  was  speedily  apparent.  Mr. 
Fenton's  unequaled  abilities  as  an  organizer  were  felt  in  every 
school  district  in  the  commonwealth,  and  when  the  returns 
showed  the  State  carried  for  Lincoln,  and  Fenton  leading  by 
some  thousands  the  presidential  vote,  the  new  Governor  became 
a  figure  of  national  importance.  Within  four  days  after  his 
inauguration  he  raised  the  last  quota  of  troops  called  for  from 
New  York  with  this  stirring  appeal:  "Having  resolutely  deter- 
mined to  go  thus  far  in  the  struggle,  we  shall  not  falter  nor  hesi- 
tate when  the  rebellion  reels  under  our  heavy  blows,  when  vic- 
tory, upon  all  the  methods  of  human  calculation,  is  so  near. 
Believing  ourselves  to  be  inspired  by  the  same  lofty  sentiments 
of  patriotism  which  animated  our  fathers  in  founding  our  free 
institutions,  let  us  continue  to  imitate  their  example  of  courage, 
endurance,  and  faithfulness  to  principle  in  maintaining  them. 
Let  us  be  faithful  and  persevere.  Let  there  be  a  rally  of  the 
people  in  every  city,  village,  and  town." 

A  few  months  afterward  the  happy  lot  and  unique  distinction 
came  to  him,  following  the  surrender  at  Appomattox,  of  being 
among  the  immortals  who  will  always  live  as  the  War  Gover- 
nors of  our  civil  strife,  who  in  Thanksgiving  proclamations  re- 
turned to  Almighty  God  the  devout  acknowledgments  of  a  grate- 
ful people  for  the  end  of  war  and  bloodshed,  and  the  victory  of 
unity  and  nationality.     That  he  carried  the  State  for  his  party 


266  ORATIONS  AND  MEMORIAL  ADDRESSES 

at  each  recurring  annual  election  during  his  two  terms  as  Gov- 
ernor proves  the  popularity  of  his  administration  and  his  skill 
as  an  organizer.  By  temperament  and  training  he  was  admir- 
ably fitted  for  executive  position.  No  one  ever  understood  bet- 
ter the  peculiarities  and  surroundings  of  men.  He  was  appar- 
ently the  most  amiable  and  conciliatory  of  public  officers,  but 
never  yielded  an  essential  point.  He  possessed  in  an  eminent 
degree  the  rare  faculty  of  satisfying  applicants  and  petitioners 
without  gratifying  them.  The  immense  State  and  local  indebt- 
edness following  the  war,  the  wild  speculations  incident  to  an 
unstable  currency,  and  the  perilous  condition  of  public  and  pri- 
vate credit,  he  thoroughly  understood,  and  with  great  sagacity 
and  judgment  devoted  his  powers  to  removing  the  dangers  and 
preparing  for  the  storm.  He  gave  the  State  what  it  most  needed 
after  the  drain  and  demoralization  of  the  Civil  War — a  wise 
business  government.  So  profoundly  impressed  with  the 
strength  of  his  administration  was  the  Convention  which  met 
at  Syracuse  in  1868  to  send  delegates  to  the  National  Conven- 
tion at  Chicago,  that  it  unanimously  and  enthusiastically  in- 
structed the  delegates  to  present  his  name  for  Vice-president, 
and  for  five  ballots  in  that  memorable  contest  he  was  second  on 
the  poll. 

Senator  Morgan  realized,  when  it  was  too  late  either  to 
gracefully  retire  or  to  avert  defeat,  that  the  power  which  Thur- 
low  Weed  had  held  for  thirty  years,  and  upon  which  he  relied, 
had  passed  away,  and  the  Governor  had  become  the  master  of 
the  party  forces  in  the  State.  Governor  Fenton  became  easily 
the  choice  of  the  Legislature  as  Mr.  Morgan's  successor,  and 
entered  the  Senate  at  a  period  when  measures  were  pending 
which  he  thoroughly  understood,  and  in  their  solution  could 
render  most  valuable  and  enduring  service.  The  bent  of  his 
mind  was  toward  financial  and  business  subjects,  and  the  debt, 
taxation,  the  currency,  banking,  and  revenue  were  the  pressing 
problems  of  the  hour.  No  measures  since  the  adoption  of  the 
Constitution  have  had  such  permanent  and  beneficial  influence 
upon  the  growth  and  prosperity  of  the  country  as  the  acts  re- 
lating to  finance  from  1869  to  1875.  The  national  credit  was 
impaired,  the  interest  upon  the  debt  was  exorbitant  and  threat- 
ened the  gravest  complications,  and  fiat  money  induced  the  wild- 
est speculation,  followed  by  its  natural  sequence,  general  bank- 


MEMORIAL  OF  GOVERNOR  FENTON  267 

ruptcy  and  business  suspension.  With  rare  courage  and  wisdom 
Congress  declared  that  all  the  obligations  of  the  Government 
should  be  paid  in  gold.  Instantly  the  shattered  credit  of  the 
Republic  was  restored,  and  its  securities  advanced  in  all  the  mar- 
kets of  the  world.  Taking  advantage  of  this  good  name  and 
reputation,  bills  were  passed  funding  the  debt  at  a  rate  of  inter- 
est so  much  reduced  that  a  burden  of  over  fifty  millions  of  dol- 
lars a  year  was  lifted  from  the  taxpayers.  Commerce,  manu- 
factures, and  all  industries  soon  responded  to  this  great  relief, 
and  the  stability  and  healthy  expansion  of  the  vast  business  of 
the  country  were  assured.  But  steady  and  reputable  occupa- 
tions, and  the  inauguration  and  completion  of  the  enterprises 
which  were  in  the  years  to  come  to  develop  our  exhaustless  re- 
sources in  such  a  rapid  and  limitless  way,  were  impossible  with 
a  fluctuating  and  uncertain  currency.  The  full  fruition  of  this 
grandest  scheme  of  finance  of  modern  times  came  with  the  re- 
sumption of  specie  payment.  That  the  losses  and  destruction 
of  the  Civil  War  have  been  regained,  repaired,  and  forgotten; 
that  the  Republic  is  many- fold  richer  in  every  element  of  wealth, 
prosperity,  and  promises  for  the  future,  is  due  to  the  wise  fore- 
sight which  prepared  and  perfected  this  harmonious  and  inter- 
dependent system.  While  Senator  Fenton  did  his  full  share 
and  occupied  an  honorable  place  in  this  grand  and  statesmanlike 
work,  he  originated  and  promoted  with  all  his  ability,  thorough- 
ness, and  persistence,  the  abolition  of  the  moiety  methods  of 
collecting  revenue.  The  evils  had  long  been  apparent,  but  no 
one  had  the  boldness  to  attack  them.  They  originated  when  the 
young  Republic  was  too  poor  to  pay  adequate  salaries,  and  con- 
tinued until  the  enormous  receipts  at  the  customs  gave  to  the 
revenue  officers  a  fortune  each  year,  and  retired  them  with 
large  wealth.  They  were  intrenched  in  the  cupidity  of  incum- 
bents and  the  hopeful  dreams  of  aspirants.  Those  in  possession, 
and  those  who  expected  to  be,  in  the  ever  varying  tides  of  politi- 
cal fortunes,  were  alike  hostile  to  a  change.  The  system  was 
fecund  in  spies,  informers,  and  perjurers,  and  merchants  were 
at  the  mercy  of  legalized  blackmail.  The  final  triumph  of 
this  beneficent  reform  will  be  remembered  to  his  lasting  honor. 
No  record  of  Governor  Fenton's  life  would  be  complete 
which  failed  to  give  the  facts  of  his  separating  from  his  party 
for  one  campaign,  and  no  memorial  honest  which  ignored  its 


268  ORATIONS  AND  MEMORIAL  ADDRESSES 

discussion.  He  supported  the  Republican  candidates  with  all 
his  might  from  the  formation  of  the  party  till  his  death,  with 
the  single  exception  of  his  vote  for  Mr.  Greeley;  before  this 
event,  he  brought  into  the  canvass  all  the  forces  of  the  organiza- 
tion then  under  his  control,  and  after  it  returned  again  within  the 
regular  lines,  giving  his  whole  time  and  influence  for  the  success 
in  each  succeeding  canvass  of  Hayes,  of  Garfield,  and  of  Blaine. 
No  organization  was  either  large  enough  or  elastic  enough  to 
hold  in  harmonious  relations  and  views  two  such  opposite,  origi- 
nal, and  positive  men  as  General  Grant  and  Horace  Greeley. 
All  conditions  in  the  beginning  conspired  to  urge  Greeley  to 
independent  action,  as  in  the  latter  part  of  his  canvass  they 
united  for  his  defeat.  The  rise  of  his  tidal  wave  until  a  vast 
majority  of  the  voters  were  apparently  drawn  into  the  current, 
and  then  its  sudden  collapse,  followed  immediately  by  his  sleep- 
less watching  for  weeks  by  the  bedside  of  his  dying  wife,  brain 
fever,  delirium,  and  death,  form  one  of  the  most  dramatic  epi- 
sodes and  romantic  tragedies  in  American  politics.  Mr.  Greeley 
delighted  in  polemical  controversy,  but  he  hated  war.  For  more 
than  a  quarter  of  a  century  this  strong  thinker  and  master  of 
the  most  vigorous  English  had  furnished  opinions  to,  and  done 
the  thinking  for,  great  numbers  of  his  fellow-citizens.  In  the 
anti-slavery  movement,  in  the  struggle  for  temperance  legis- 
lation, in  all  moral  reforms,  he  was  the  most  potent  factor  of 
his  generation.  Shocked  and  outraged  beyond  restraint  when 
the  first  shot  was  fired  at  the  flag,  he  demanded  that  the  rebel 
soil  be  plowed  with  cannon-balls  and  sown  with  salt,  and  his 
clarion  notes  rang  through  the  land  like  a  trumpet  blast  calling 
all  loyal  men  to  arms.  But  when  he  thought  he  saw  a  prospect 
of  peace  with  slavery  abolished,  he  recoiled  appalled  from  fur- 
ther bloodshed,  and  cried  halt. 

Unlike  most  strong  natures  he  harbored  no  resentments  and 
was  incapable  of  revenge.  When  the  rebellion  was  crushed,  he 
went  upon  the  bail-bond  of  Jefferson  Davis  'as  a  protest  against 
death-penalties  and  confiscations,  and  in  the  hope  of  amnesty, 
reconciliation,  and  brotherly  reunion  upon  the  basis  won  by  our 
victory  in  the  war.  He  so  impressed  and  imbued  Abraham  Lin- 
coln with  his  views  that  only  the  assassination  of  the  President 
prevented  their  public  announcement.  He  had  been  a  devoted 
follower  and  passionate  lover  of  Henry  Clay,  and  three  times 


MEMORIAL  OF  GOVERNOR  FENTON  269 

had  seen  him  set  aside  for  the  availability  of  military  popularity. 
While  most  cordially  conceding  to  General  Grant  his  position  as 
the  foremost  captain  of  his  time,  Mr.  Greeley  mistrusted  his  ad- 
ministrative ability  in  civil  affairs,  feared  the  result  of  his  in- 
experience, and  intensely  disliked  his  advisers.  To  President 
Grant,  on  the  other  hand,  the  great  editor  seemed  something 
more,  and  little  less,  than  an  inspired  crank.  After  the  unfor- 
tunate results  of  some  of  the  temporary  and  tentative  State  ad- 
ministrations in  the  South,  Mr.  Greeley  conceived  the  idea  that 
if  the  late  rebels  and  slaveholders  could  be  induced,  in  return  for 
the  full  restoration  of  their  State  governments  and  universal 
amnesty,  to  accept  the  amendments  to  the  Constitution,  the  free- 
dom and  citizenship  of  the  slave,  the  inviolability  of  the  debt,  and 
all  the  results  of  the  war,  with  hearty  loyalty  to  the  flag  waving 
over  a  Republic  reconstructed  on  these  conditions ;  and  as  hostage 
for  their  faith  would  take  as  their  candidate  for  President  a 
lifelong  abolitionist  and  Republican;  the  problem  of  reconstruc- 
tion and  peace  would  be  solved  at  once.  Responding  to  this  idea 
the  world  beheld  the  amazing  spectacle  of  these  people  in  con- 
vention assembled  solemnly  declaring  that  the  obligations  of  the 
Republic  to  the  abolition  of  slavery,  to  the  civil  and  political  rights 
of  the  f  reedmen,  to  the  honest  payment  of  the  national  debt,  to  the 
repudiation  of  rebel  loans,  and  to  pensions  to  Union  soldiers, 
were  unalterable  and  sacred,  and  then  nominating  for  President 
one  who  had  said  more  harsh  and  bitter  things,  and  through  his 
writings  and  speeches  done  more  effective  work  for  the  over- 
throw of  all  their  principles  and  traditions  than  any  man  living 
or  dead.  That  the  South,  without  giving  the  evidences  of  re- 
pentance then  promised,  has  been  granted  and  now  enjoys  even 
more  than  Mr.  Greeley  proposed  is  the  answer  of  the  succeed- 
ing political  generation  to  the  fierce  assaults  made  at  the  time 
upon  his  theory  and  anticipations.  That  a  large  majority  of 
his  party  associates  were  converted  to  his  hopeful  view  at  first, 
and  many  followed  him  to  the  end,  was  natural,  when  the  move- 
ment was  inspired  and  led  by  so  masterful  and  commanding  an 
intellect,  which  had  braved  defeat  and  death  for  the  rights  of 
men,  and  been  always  the  first  of  the  forlorn  hope  of  liberty 
and  reform,  in  the  assault  upon  the  most  impregnable  positions 
of  wrong,  immorality,  and  oppression  for  over  a  quarter  of  a 
century.     That  he  was  defeated  and  General  Grant  elected,  the 


OF  THr    ^ 

OF 

ifORNlfe, 


270  ORATIONS  AND  MEMORIAL  ADDRESSES 

backward  view  over  the  events  since  1872,  which  is  not  difficult 
for  most  men  to  safely  and  correctly  take,  proves  to  have  been 
a  wise  and  fortunate  result.  He  was  killed  by  his  defeat.  I 
stood  near  as  the  clouds  began  to  gather  in  that  mighty  and  ac- 
tive brain.  He  thought  that  a  life  unselfishly  given  to  mankind 
would  be  judged  a  failure  by  posterity,  and  that  the  fame  which 
he  had  hoped  would  rest  upon  the  praise  and  the  gratitude  of 
the  humble  and  oppressed  was  already  permanently  injured  by 
the  prejudices  and  distrust  aroused  in  them  by  the  calumnies  of 
the  canvass.  Though  his  controversies  filled  the  land,  this  great 
fighter  for  the  truth  as  he  understood  it  was  the  most  morbidly 
sensitive  of  mortals,  and,  weakened  by  the  sleepless  strain  of  the 
struggle  and  his  domestic  affliction,  reason  and  life  succumbed 
to  ridicule  and  misrepresentation.  We  have  seen  death  in  many 
forms,  and  for  most  of  us  it  has  lost  its  terrors,  but  to  witness 
a  great  mind  suddenly  break  and  go  out  in  helpless  and  hopeless 
darkness  was  the  saddest  scene  I  ever  saw,  and  its  memory  is  as 
of  the  most  painful  of  tragedies. 

Horace  Greeley  was  the  last  of  that  famous  triumvirate  of 
editors,  Greeley,  Bennett,  and  Raymond,  whose  genius  and  in- 
dividuality subordinated  the  functions  of  a  great  newspaper  to 
the  presentation  of  their  opinions  and  characteristics.  Their 
journals  were  personal  organs,  but  of  phenomenal  influence. 
The  vigor  of  Mr.  Greeley's  thought  and  the  lucidity  of  its  ex- 
pression carried  conviction  to  the  minds  of  hundreds  of  thou- 
sands of  people,  and  made  him  for  nearly  a  quarter  of  a  century 
the  greatest  individual  force  in  the  country.  He  was  so  hon- 
est and  terrifically  in  earnest,  so  right  in  his  motives  and  pure  in 
his  principles,  that,  like  the  spots  upon  the  sun,  his  mistakes  made 
more  evident  the  loftiness  of  his  purposes.  His  motives  were  so 
transparent  that  his  errors  and  eccentricities  increased  his 
strength,  and  even  when  wrong  he  inspired  more  confidence  than 
is  reposed  in  most  men  when  right.  He  made  and  unmade 
more  reputations  than  any  other  writer  in  the  land.  His  un- 
timely death  hushed  all  hearts.  President  and  Cabinet,  gener- 
als and  soldiers,  Governors  and  Congressmen,  friends  and  foes, 
the  mighty  and  the  humble,  gathered  at  his  bier,  and  the  nation 
mourned  as  never  before  for  the  loss  of  a  citizen  in  private 
station. 

Mr.  Fenton  had  acted  with  Mr.  Greeley  since  the  formation 


MEMORIAL  OF  GOVERNOR  FENTON  271 

of  the  Republican  Party.  They  had  been  the  closest  of  personal 
and  political  friends.  They  consulted  freely  and  often  on  all 
questions,  and  continued  in  the  fullest  accord  on  party  meas- 
ures and  policies.  After  the  dissolution  of  the  famous  partner- 
ship of  Seward,  Weed,  and  Greeley,  Fenton  cast  his  fortunes 
with  the  junior  member  of  the  firm.  His  faith  in  Greeley,  and 
constant  contact  with  his  aspirations  and  views,  led  to  his  full 
agreement  with  the  opinions,  while  his  fidelity  led  to  his  giving 
a  cordial  support  to  the  ambitions,  of  his  friend. 

After  retiring  from  the  Senate,  Governor  Fenton  contin- 
ued active  and  deeply  interested  in  the  success  of  his  party,  but 
was  never  again  a  candidate  for  office.  President  Hayes  sent 
him  abroad  in  1878  as  chairman  of  the  commission  to  the  Inter- 
national Monetary  Convention  to  fix  the  ratio  of  value  between 
gold  and  silver,  and  provide  for  their  common  use.  But  his 
health  had  become  impaired  by  the  strain  of  a  busy  and  stormy 
life,  and  continued  precarious  until  his  sudden  death  while 
sitting  at  his  office  desk.  The  Governor  and  State  officers,  and 
a  multitude  of  people  representing  the  affection  and  re- 
spect of  a  large  constituency,  gave  additional  significance  and 
solemnity  to  the  last  tributes  to  his  memory. 

Reuben  E.  Fenton  was  remarkable  for  the  full  rounded  char- 
acter of  his  mind  and  disposition.  No  matter  how  fiercely  the 
storm  raged  about  him,  he  was  always  serene  and  unmoved. 
Though  it  was  his  fortunes  which  were  at  stake,  he  was  the 
calmest  of  the  combatants.  He  was  the  most  affable  and  ap- 
proachable of  men,  and  yet  until  he  acted  none  knew  either  his 
plans  or  his  views.  He  listened  courteously  to  every  one,  but 
what  he  heard  rarely  changed  his  deliberate  judgment.  In  the 
heat  of  the  contest,  when  upon  his  decision  or  signature  depended 
results  of  the  greatest  importance  to  powerful  and  persistent  ap- 
plicants, his  manner  of  receiving  them  led  to  angry  charges  that 
he  had  conveyed  false  impressions  or  been  guilty  of  bad  faith, 
but  no  proof  was  ever  submitted,  and  it  came  to  be  admitted  that 
he  was  under  the  most  tantalizing  and  exasperating  conditions  al- 
ways a  gentleman.  He  was  faultless  in  dress  and  manners, 
whether  in  the  executive  chamber,  upon  the  platform,  or  in  the 
crowd,  but  this  scrupulous  exactness  seemed  to  enhance  his  pop- 
ularity. He  loved  to  mingle  freely  with  the  people,  but  he  re- 
ceived the  like  kindly  greeting  and  cordial  confidence  from  work- 


272  ORATIONS  AND  MEMORIAL  ADDRESSES 

ingmen  fresh  from  the  forge  or  merchants  in  their  parlors  or 
counting-rooms.  When  the  history  of  our  State  comes  to  be 
impartially  written,  Mr.  Fenton  will  be  given  rank  as  its  best 
political  organizer  after  Martin  Van  Buren.  But  he  possessed 
a  magnetism  which  Van  Buren  never  had.  A  most  tender,  gen- 
tle, and  affectionate  nature  shone  brightly  for  his  friends  through 
the  crust  of  the  mannerisms  of  office  and  policy.  I  have  met  all 
the  public  men  of  my  time  under  circumstances  sufficiently  close 
to  afford  some  insight  into  the  secrets  of  their  power,  and  he 
was  one  of  the  very  few  who  had  an  eloquent  presence.  His 
touch  and  look  conveyed,  if  he  pleased,  such  a  world  of  inter- 
est and  regard,  that  the  recipient,  without  knowing  why,  felt 
honored  by  his  confidence  and  encircled  by  his  friendship.  It 
was  this  which  made  it  impossible  to  crush  him  after  repeated 
defeats.  When  he  was  under  the  ban  of  power;  when  to  act 
with  him  was  to  accept  ostracism;  when  the  office-holder  was 
sure  to  lose  his  place  and  the  ambitious  found  all  avenues  barred 
if  they  followed  his  lead,  he  came  year  after  year  to  the  annual 
Convention  of  his  party  with  such  a  solid,  numerous,  and  aggres- 
sive host  that  it  required  all  the  resources  of  unsurpassed  elo- 
quence, political  sagacity,  and  the  lavish  prizes  of  patronage  to 
prevent  his  carrying  off  the  victory.  The  character  and  deeds 
which  redound  to  his  honor  and  will  perpetuate  his  memory  are 
sources  of  just  pride  to  his  State  and  of  lasting  pleasure  to  his 
friends.  He  was  a  representative  of  the  people  when  the  most 
vital  questions  affecting  the  welfare  of  the  human  race  on  this 
continent  were  at  issue  and  the  Republic  in  the  agonies  of  dis- 
solution, and  acted  well  the  part  of  philanthropist,  patriot,  and 
statesman.  He  was  twice  Governor  of  this  State,  at  a  most 
critical  period  in  its  history,  wielding  the  powers  of  the  execu- 
tive with  wisdom  and  courage;  and  as  the  leader  of  the  domi- 
nant party  in  the  commonwealth,  exercising  a  potent,  but  broad 
and  healthful,  influence  in  the  affairs  of  the  nation.  He  was 
United  States  Senator  during  the  fruitful  period  of  the  recon- 
struction of  the  Government,  and  left  enduring  monuments  of 
his  fidelity  arid  ability  as  one  of  the  architects  of  the  new  era. 
As  Congressman,  Governor,  Senator,  there  is  no  stain  upon  his 
record,  and  his  public  life  stands  pure  and  unassailed. 

The  controversies  which  occupied  so  large  a  part  of  his  life 
are  over ;  the  causes  which  produced  them  have  ceased  to  exist ; 


MEMORIAL  OF  GOVERNOR  FENTON  273 

and  the  friends  and  foes  of  that  period  can  fight  over  the  old 
battles  without  rancor  or  passion.  The  ever  dissolving  and  re- 
uniting fragments  of  political  forces  wear  off  by  friction  enmi- 
ties and  jealousies,  and  by  the  recognition  of  merits  before  un- 
known in  our  opponents  we  are  all  brought  into  more  harmoni- 
ous and  respecting  relations.  We  can  all  stand  beside  the  grave 
of  Reuben  E.  Fenton,  and  forgetting,  for  the  moment,  our  di- 
visions and  contentions,  mourn  the  loss  of  one  who  in  his  day 
and  generation  acted  so  well  his  part  as  private  citizen  and  pub- 
lic officer,  that  the  commonwealth  and  the  country  were  en- 
riched by  his  example,  his  character,  and  his  work. 


Vol.  1—18 


STATUE  OF  GENERAL  LOGAN 


ADDRESS  AT  THE  UNVEILING  OF  THE  STATUE  OF  GENERAL  JOHN 
A.   LOGAN,  AT  WASHINGTON,  APRIL  9,    I9OI. 

Ladies  and  Gentlemen:  The  history  of  our  country  is 
condensed  in  the  Revolutionary  and  Civil  Wars.  The  first 
was  the  creation  of  a  nation  which  embodied  the  evolution  and 
aspirations  of  the  English  colonists  from  1620  to  1776  in  the 
experiment  of  self-government.  The  second  was  the  trium- 
phant solution  on  the  side  of  liberty  and  humanity,  by  the  most 
gigantic  and  bloody  of  modern  conflicts,  of  the  problems  which 
the  founders  of  our  Government  had  left  for  posterity.  Since 
then  there  has  been  no  restraint  upon  American  development  and 
no  barrier  to  American  progress.  The  story  of  the  Revolu- 
tion and  the  Rebellion  will  be  read  by  future  generations,  not  in 
the  narration  of  their  causes  or  incidents,  but  mainly  in  the  lives 
of  the  master  minds  who  participated  in  those  struggles.  We 
now  read  the  Revolution  in  the  careers  and  achievements  of 
Washington,  Jefferson,  Hamilton,  and  Samuel  and  John  Adams 
and  their  compatriots.  Our  marvelous  material  development 
and  the  pace  at  which  we  have  advanced  in  every  department 
of  national  activity  since  1865  make  the  great  civil  strife  seem 
as  distant  almost  as  the  classic  tales  of  our  student  days.  As 
Washington  stands  out  in  the  first  of  our  crucial  contests,  so  does 
Lincoln  in  the  second.  About  Lincoln  cluster  Grant,  Sherman, 
Sheridan,  Logan,  McPherson,  and  a  host  of  other  heroes. 

The  "typical  American"  has  long  been  the  subject  of  discus- 
sion and  portraiture.  In  caricature,  in  picture,  and  upon  the 
stage  our  national  characteristics  are  represented  by  "Brother 
Jonathan,"  who  is  sharp,  keen,  aggressive  and  fearless,  but  who 
exhibits  no  trait  of  that  culture,  sensitive  honor,  and  lofty  mo- 
rality which  mark  a  noble  and  successful  people.  We  do  not, 
therefore,  find  the  "typical  American"  in  the  sketch  of  the  artist 
or  upon  the  dramatic  stage.  The  professional  or  business  man 
who  has  been  successful  in  his  pursuit;  the  one  who,  with  the 
great  opportunities  offered  in  the  United  States  and  by  the  ex- 

274 


STATUE  OF  GENERAL  LOGAN  275 

ercise  of  rare  gifts,  has  accumulated  a  phenomenal  fortune;  or 
the  distinguished  soldier  or  sailor  who  has  come  from  the  se- 
vere training  of  West  Point  or  Annapolis,  is  not  peculiar  to  our 
country.  He  exists  under  all  governments  and  accomplishes 
the  same  career  under  all  institutions.  American  liberty  and 
law,  which  grant  to  all  equal  opportunities,  which  neither  foster 
nor  favor,  nor  permit  class  or  privilege,  cultivate  a  kaleidoscopic 
activity  which  is  possible  alone  with  us.  It  develops  an  Ameri- 
can who  passes  easily  and  naturally  to  and  from  private  pur- 
suits and  public  life,  is  ready  and  forceful  upon  the  platform  or 
in  halls  of  legislation,  is  facile  with  his  pen,  and  keen  upon  all 
questions  of  current  interest,  and  with  that  leisure  which  comes 
only  to  the  very  busy,  finds  rest  and  recreation  in  travel,  fraternal 
organizations,  and  society.  He  early  in  life  becomes  a  member 
of  the  military  company  of  his  town  or  the  national  guard  of 
his  state,  and  locks  his  office  or  leaves  the  shop  to  march  with 
his  command  to  the  field  of  duty  and  of  danger.  If  he  sur- 
vives the  perils  of  battle  and  dangers  of  disease,  he  practically 
beats  his  sword  into  a  ploughshare  and  his  spear  into  a  pruning 
hook  by  exchanging  the  uniform  of  the  soldier  for  the  dress  of 
the  citizen,  and  quietly  resuming  the  peaceful  paths  of  the  in- 
dustry he  abandoned  to  fight  for  his  country.  The  Grand  Army 
of  the  Republic  has  upon  its  rolls  numerous  examples,  living  and 
dead,  of  heroes  in  war  who  were  also  successes  in  the  professions 
or  business,  orators  of  rare  merit  and  statesmen  of  unique  dis- 
tinction. Such  a  man — a  typical  American — is  the  soldier, 
statesman,  and  patriot  for  the  unveiling  of  whose  statue,  erected 
by  a  grateful  country,  we  are  here  assembled. 

It  is  a  popular  delusion  that  the  fiber  of  American  character 
is  best  wrought  and  exhibited  in  those  who  have  been  deficient 
in  early  opportunities  for  education;  whose  struggles  have  been 
harder  than  their  fellows'  and  who  have  passed  their  youth  either 
in  or  upon  the  borders  of  the  western  wilderness.  It  was  found 
in  the  Civil  War  that  there  was  no  difference  in  courage,  dash 
or  endurance  between  the  men  of  the  East,  the  West,  the  North, 
or  the  South,  between  those  who  came  from  the  fields,  the  for- 
ests, the  mines,  or  the  factories,  and  those  who  stepped  out  from 
the  pulpit,  the  lawyer's  office,  the  counting  house,  the  profes- 
sor's chair,  or  the  pedagogue's  seat.  In  that  most  illustrative 
body  of  American  manhood,  the  Rough  Rider  regiment  of  the 


276  ORATIONS  AND  MEMORIAL  ADDRESSES 

Spanish  War,  the  dandy  from  the  club,  the  student  from  the 
university,  and  the  cowboy  from  the  plains,  in  the  stress  of  bat- 
tle, in  the  deadly  charge  and  under  the  hail  of  bullets,  found 
that  under  fire  and  following  the  flag  they  were  equal  and  equally 
good   Americans. 

In  the  crises  of  our  fate  as  a  nation  God  seems  to  have  raised 
up  and  prepared  men  specially  for  the  accomplishment  of  the 
wonderful  purposes  which  He  had  in  store  for  the  Republic. 
But  these  wonderful  intelligences,  ready  for  great  occasions  and 
the  accomplishment  of  historic  deeds,  are  inactive  and  undistin- 
guished in  communities  like  ours  until  their  country  calls  them 
to  duty. 

The  Mexican  War  fired  the  imagination  of  the  adventurous 
youth  of  our  land.  It  carried  young  Logan,  with  a  musket,  as 
a  private  in  the  ranks  of  his  company,  across  the  Rio  Grande,  and 
he  won  his  shoulder  straps  in  the  bloody  battles  under  Gener- 
als Taylor  and  Scott.  The  baptism  of  fire  opened  the  mind,  en- 
larged the  horizon,  and  pointed  out  a  larger  future  than  ever 
dreamed  of  for  himself  and  for  his  country  to  this  enthusiastic 
lad. 

A  most  difficult  thing  for  anyone  is  to  escape  from  his  sur- 
roundings of  neighborhood,  traditions,  provincialisms  and  fam- 
ily. It  is  a  more  serious  task,  if  a  born  leader  has  discovered 
the  errors  of  opinion  of  himself  and  his  neighbors,  to  attempt 
to  remain  their  leader  by  converting  them  to  his  new-born  ideas. 
There  was  no  more  unpromising  section  of  the  United  States 
in  which  to  rear  a  Union  man  and  a  Federal  soldier  than  the 
Egypt  of  Illinois.  It  had  been  settled  by  slaveholders  and  the 
sons  of  slaveholders,  and  its  people,  from  blood  relationship, 
sympathy  and  association,  were  in  thorough  accord  with  the 
slaveholding  States  from  which  they  had  come.  Young  Logan 
became  their  idol,  and  he  was  their  representative  in  Congress. 
The  nearly  unanimous  vote  by  which  he  was  sent  to  Washing- 
ton illustrated  the  closeness  and  confidence  between  himself  and 
this  constituency.  He  was  a  tower  of  strength  for  the  reac- 
tionary views  and  purposes  of  the  slavery  leaders  in  Congress, 
but  underneath  the  sentiment  and  principles  of  the  party  to 
which  he  was  devoted  there  brightly  burned  a  spirit  of  liberty. 

Slavery  was  intolerant  of  opposition  and  discussion.  Love- 
joy,  of  Illinois,  Logan's  fellow-member,  was  one  of  the  bravest 


STATUE  OF  GENERAL  LOGAN  277 

and  ablest  of  the  anti-slavery  champions.  When  he  rose  to 
speak  in  the  House  of  Representatives  an  enraged  mob  of  mem- 
bers crowded  about  him  that  not  only  prevented  his  being 
heard,  but  threatened  his  life.  It  was  this  incident  that  opened 
the  eyes  of  Logan  to  the  great  truth,  subsequently  expressed  by 
Lincoln,  that  the  Union  could  never  endure  half  free  and  half 
slave.  He  instantly  stepped  upon  the  side  of  liberty,  and  so 
imperiously  demanded  a  recognition  of  the  rights  of  his  col- 
league upon  the  floor  of  the  House  that  his  turbulent  associates 
went  back  to  their  seats,  and  free  speech  was  vindicated. 

When  hostilities  began,  a  weaker  man  than  Logan  would 
have  sided  with  his  constituents  in  their  sympathy  with  the  South. 
Had  he  been  withr  them,  an  insurrection  in  southern  Illinois,  bar- 
ring the  way  of  the  Union  army  to  Kentucky  and  Tennessee, 
would  have  been  a  frightful  blow  to  the  success  of  the  national 
cause.  It  was  a  conflict  in  which  on  the  one  side  he  would  ap- 
parently lose  his  home  and  his  political  future  to  enlist  in  a  cause 
which,  in  that  hour  and  atmosphere,  seemed  well  nigh  hopeless, 
while  on  the  other,  in  addition  to  the  hardships  and  perils  of  war, 
would  be  ceaseless  dangers  from  enemies  both  in  front  and  rear. 

The  stirring  news  came  to  the  House  while  in  session  that 
the  battle  of  Bull  Run  was  in  progress.  The  soldier  of  the 
Mexican  War  again  heard  the  music  of  the  national  anthem  and 
flew  to  the  defense  of  the  national  flag.  The  dramatic  scene  was 
witnessed  upon  the  battle  field  of  a  civilian  in  frock  coat  and  top 
silk  hat,  who  had  seized  a  musket  from  a  wounded  soldier,  and 
by  action  and  words  and  reckless  daring  was  doing  his  best  to 
stem  the  tide  of  defeat  and  turn  the  army  back  to  meet  the  en- 
emy. In  that  hour  Logan's  vision  clearly  saw  the  path  of  duty. 
He  hastened  home  to  his  constituents  to  bring  them  around  to 
the  Union  cause  and  to  have  them  enlist  in  the  Union  army.  He 
met  sullen  and  threatening  mobs  everywhere.  But  nothing  could 
resist  the  fervor  of  his  eloquence,  the  inspiration  of  his  presence, 
and  his  cry,  "Follow  me  to  the  field  for  the  old  flag  and  the 
Union.  It  is  no  longer  the  right  and  wrong  of  slavery;  it  is 
no  longer  the  disputed  question  of  the  extension  of  that  insti- 
tution into  the  territories,  but  it  is  whether  you  will  be  with  me 
for  the  preservation  of  the  Union  and  of  this  last  refuge  and 
security  of  liberty  and  humanity."  Character,  courage,  and  pa- 
triotism triumphed.     He  led  his  whole  people  out  of  the  dark- 


278  ORATIONS  AND  MEMORIAL  ADDRESSES 

ness  of  Egypt  into  the  light  of  the  promised  land.  Within  a  few 
weeks  he  was  in  the  field  with  his  regiment,  and  other  regiments 
followed  as  often  as  the  Government  called  for  volunteers. 

Logan  is  the  finest  example  of  the  volunteer  soldier. 
Around  the  nucleus  of  a  little  army  of  twenty-five  thousand 
regulars  gathered  a  million  of  volunteers  who  formed  in  an 
incredibly  brief  time  the  most  magnificent  and  resistless  body 
of  soldiery  of  modern  or  ancient  times.  They  demonstrated,  in 
the  quickness  with  which  the  army  was  mobilized  and  disciplined, 
in  the  steadiness  and  endurance  which  it  exhibited  as  if  trained 
veterans,  and  in  its  peaceful  disbandment  and  return  to  the  pur- 
suits of  peace  after  the  close  of  the  war,  that  the  strength  and 
reliance  of  our  country  rest  upon  its  citizen  soldiery.  This  ex- 
periment also  demonstrated  that  while  the  citizen  soldiers  are 
engaged  in  gainful  pursuits  and  increasing  the  wealth  of  the 
country,  an  adequate  army  composed  of  those  who  select  a  sol- 
dier's career  can  protect  the  public  property,  suppress  insurrec- 
tion, and  meet  immediate  and  exigent  requirements  at  home  or 
abroad,  and  that  we  need  have  no  apprehension  of  militarism  or 
of  Caesar  ism.  The  regular  army  is  but  the  pickets  and  the 
skirmishers  of  that  vast  host  who,  from  the  mountains  and  val- 
leys, from  plains  and  cities,  from  hamlets  and  towns,  are  ready 
to  respond  to  the  call  to  arms  for  the  protection  of  their  liber- 
ties from  attacks  within  or  the  defense  of  their  country  from 
foreign  assault. 

Logan's  brilliant  career  emphasizes  the  necessity  for  a  military 
education.  In  arms,  as  in  art,  in  the  professions  and  the  indus- 
tries, the  severest  training  and  the  best  education  are  the  requi- 
sites for  success  in  our  day  of  terrific  competition.  We  will 
not  dispute  Logan's  claim,  carried  too  far  in  his  enthusiasm,  of 
the  distinction  of  the  natural  soldier ;  but  great  as  were  the  merits 
and  the  success  of  our  general,  if  his  genius  had  been  trained, 
broadened,  and  strengthened  by  the  drill  and  discipline  of  the 
academy,  the  fort  and  the  field,  he  would  have  stood  in  the  front 
rank  of  the  commanders  of  great  armies  of  modern  times. 

The  magnanimity  and  generosity  of  this  thunderbolt  of  war 
were  as  marked  as  was  his  courage.  When  Grant  became  im- 
patient with  General  Thomas  because  he  lingered  at  Nashville 
instead  of  moving  upon  the  enemy,  he  sent  Logan  to  supersede 
him.     When  Logan  arrived  at  Cincinnati  he  learned  that  Thomas 


STATUE  OF  GENERAL  LOGAN  279 

had  started.  He  knew  that  he  could  reach  Thomas's  army 
before  a  battle,  and  that  he  had  before  him  that  greatest  tempta- 
tion and  opportunity  for  a  soldier — a  significant  and  decisive 
victory.  But  he  knew  Thomas,  the  "Rock  of  Chickamauga." 
He  knew  that  Thomas  had  made  the  preparations  with  such 
care  that  failure  was  impossible.  He  knew  that  the  honors  were 
due  to  the  organizer  of  the  prospective  triumph,  and  he  delayed 
plucking  the  laurels  that  were  within  his  grasp,  that  they  might 
adorn  the  brow  of  Thomas.  So  again  in  the  bloody  battle  of 
Atlanta.  McPherson  fell  at  the  beginning  of  the  fight.  He  was 
the  idol  of  the  army,  and  one  of  the  most  brilliant,  accomplished, 
and  promising  officers  of  the  war  on  either  side.  The  command 
devolved  from  the  West  Pointer  to  the  volunteer.  It  is  the 
testimony  of  Grant,  Sherman,  Howard,  and  of  all  of  his  superior 
officers  and  contemporaries  that  in  no  conflict  of  the  war  were 
the  troops  more  ably  and  skilfully  handled  than  by  Logan.  Not 
only  was  he  the  directing  genius,  planning  and  ordering  the 
execution  of  the  complex  details  of  a  widely  extended  field,  but 
at  the  critical  points  this  ideal  soldier,  upon  his  black  charger, 
with  flowing  raven  hair  and  flashing  eyes,  the  incarnation  of 
battle,  was  rallying  the  routed  troops  and  leading  them  again  to 
attack  and  to  victory.  Sherman  distrusted  officers  who  had  not 
been  educated  to  arms,  and  so  when  it  was  the  unanimous  opinion 
of  the  army  that  Logan  had  won  the  command  of  the  Army 
of  the  Tennessee,  which  was  the  ambition  of  his  career,  he  was 
sent  back  to  his  corps  and  another  was  given  the  commission. 
While  other  officers  under  such  circumstances  frequently  sulked 
in  their  tents  or  resigned,  Logan,  without  a  word  or  a  murmur, 
assumed  his  old  place  and  went  on  fighting  until  there  was  no 
opposition,  but  a  general  demand  that  he  should  lead  the  Army 
of  the  Tennessee. 

The  most  gratifying  tribute  to  himself  and  the  best  expres- 
sion of  the  opinion  of  the  volunteer  army  in  regard  to  him  was 
his  election  as  the  first  commander  of  the  Grand  Army  of  the 
Republic,  and  the  election  repeated  as  often  as  he  would  accept 
the  place.  Long  after  all  but  the  leaders  of  the  civil  strife  on 
either  side  are  forgotten,  Logan's  memory  will  remain  green 
because  of  the  beautiful  memorial  service  which  he  originated 
and  which  now  in  every  part  of  our  re-united  land  sets  aside  one 
day  in  the  year  as  a  national  holiday  in  order  that  the  graves  of 


280  ORATIONS  AND  MEMORIAL  ADDRESSES 

the  gallant  dead,  both  Federal  and  Confederate,  may  be  decorated 
with  flowers.  It  is  no  longer  confined  to  the  soldiers  of  the  Civil 
War,  but  continued  to  those  of  our  latest  struggle.  The  cere- 
mony will  exist  and  be  actively  participated  in  while  posterity 
remains  proud  of  heroic  ancestors  and  of  their  achievements,  and 
our  country  venerates  the  patriotism  and  the  courage  of  those 
who  died  for  its  preservation  or  its  honor. 

But  our  typical  American  had  only  begun  his  kaleidoscopic 
career  when  the  war  closed.  Like  his  companions  in  arms,  he 
returned  to  civil  pursuits.  Illinois,  seconding  the  voice  of  the 
people  everywhere,  demanded  that  he  surrender  his  private  affairs 
to  the  call  of  duty  and  give  to  the  country  his  ripe  experience  in 
the  critical  measures  of  reconstruction  and  pacification.  The 
dashing  soldier  became  the  acute  parliamentarian,  the  vigorous 
debater,  and  the  constructive  statesman.  The  fierce  passions  of 
the  Civil  War  and  the  vindictiveness  of  the  irreconcilables  made 
the  way  difficult  for  the  legislation  which  has  happily  made  our 
country  one.  In  the  titanic  debates  of  the  giants  of  those  days 
there  was  no  more  conspicuous  figure  and  no  more  absolutely 
unselfish  legislator  than  Logan.  His  nature  was  so  intense  that 
he  could  not  help  being  a  partisan,  but  the  kind  of  a  partisan 
whom  his  worst  enemies  most  highly  respected.  He  foresaw 
in  1870  the  necessity  of  that  work  for  the  Cuban  people  by  the 
United  States  which  was  done  in  1898.  He  stood  for  the  na- 
tional credit,  the  honest  payment  of  the  national  debt,  and  the 
redemption  at  every  sacrifice  of  the  national  honor  at  a  period 
when  we  were  rushing  headlong  into  repudiation  and  fiat  money. 
He  courageously  took  up  the  problem  of  the  negro,  that  most 
difficult  of  the  questions  which  are  still  before  us.  There  has 
been  in  the  thirty  years  since  he  preached  no  suggestion  better 
than  the  one  which  he  advanced,  which  was,  "educate,  educate, 
educate." 

This  typical  American  who  was  a  good  lawyer,  a  great  soldier, 
a  constructive  statesman,  and  a  magnetic  orator,  gave  diversion 
to  his  restless  activity  by  labors  with  the  pen.  In  the  intervals 
of  his  work  in  Congress  and  responses  to  calls  for  speeches  at 
public  meetings  and  the  drudgery  of  a  vast  correspondence  he 
found  time  to  prepare  two  large  volumes,  one  historical  and  the 
other  critical,  which  are  of  much  value  and  merit. 

Happily  for  the  youth  of  our  country,  we  are  peculiarly  rich 


STATUE  OF  GENERAL  LOGAN  281 

in  these  exemplars  of  American  liberty  and  opportunity.  With 
the  extension  of  our  boundaries,  our  productiveness,  our  indus- 
trial enterprises  and  our  educational  institutions,  the  old  avenues 
are  kept  open  and  newer  and  broader  ones  are  builded  for  present 
and  future  generations. 

In  every  community  in  our  land  the  leaders  of  public  opinion 
and  the  dwellers  in  the  homes  of  prosperity  have  come  from  the 
ranks.  Among  those  successful  Americans  in  many  lines,  who 
have  won  and  held  the  public  eye  and  died  mourned  by  all  their 
countrymen,  there  will  live  in  the  future  in  the  history  of  the 
Republic  no  nobler  figure,  in  peace  and  in  war,  in  the  pursuits  of 
the  citizen  and  in  work  for  the  welfare  of  his  fellow-citizens, 
than  General  John  A.  Logan. 


MEMORIAL  OF  JOHN  JAY 


ADDRESS  AT  THE   MEMORIAL  SERVICES  IN   HONOR  OF  JOHN   JAY1 
NOVEMBER  20,    1 894. 

Ladies  and  Gentlemen  :  There  are  two  methods  of  esti- 
mating the  character  and  qualities  as  a  man  of  a  distinguished 
public  personage,  one  from  intimate  friendship  and  association, 
the  other  from  his  public  record. 

As  a  Westchester  County  man  with  my  own  family  traditions 
running  back  to  its  first  settlement,  I  have  very  strongly  the 
county  feeling  of  pride  and  interest  in  its  distinguished  citizens. 
Foremost  among  these  have  been  for  more  than  a  hundred  years 
the  representatives  of  the  Jay  family,  beginning  with  the  Chief 
Justice  of  the  United  States  and  continuing  down  to  the  later 
John  Jay.  Westchester  County  associations  brought  me  early 
in  life  in  intimate  personal  contact  with  Mr.  Jay,  though  on 
account  of  the  difference  in  years  I  could  not  have  that  close 
friendship  possible  only  in  early  manhood,  but  I  was  fortunate 
enough  to  possess  for  nearly  a  quarter  of  a  century  his  cordial 
acquaintance.  From  this  contact,  as  well  as  the  story  of  his 
life,  I  make  up  my  estimate  of  the  man.  He  was  a  fine  example 
of  the  influences  of  heredity.  We  count  too  little  the  force  of 
this  in  the  lives  and  the  achievements  of  distinguished  men.  We 
recognize  in  nations  how  far  heredity  has  changed  the  course  of 
history  and  the  destinies  of  empires.  It  would  be  interesting  to 
trace  studiously  in  the  positions,  the  opinions  and  the  acts  of 
statesmen  and  private  citizens  who  have  powerfully  influenced 
the  movement  of  their  times,  the  ancestry  from  which  they  came 
and  the  impressions  made  upon  it  in  bygone  centuries.  John  Jay 
was  a  Huguenot.  His  ancestors  had  been  exiled  from  France  at 
the  time  of  the  revocation  of  the  Edict  of  Nantes.  The  tragic 
results  of  that  famous  act  have  burned  in  the  soul  and  followed 
the  blood  of  the  Huguenot  down  the  generations.     Its  horrors 

ijohn  Jay  (1817-1894),  eminent  lawyer  and  diplomat,  was  the  grandson-  of  the  first 
Chief- Justice  of  the  United  States.  A  graduate  of  Columbia  in  1836,  he  was  admitted 
to  the  Bar  in  1839.  He  was  active  in  the  Free  Soil  Party  and  was  identified  with  the 
foundation  of  the  Republican  Party.    In  1869-75  he  was  Minister  to  Austria-Hungary. — Etf. 

282 


MEMORIAL  OF  JOHN  JAY  283 

and  sufferings  and  the  incalculable  injury  it  did  to  France,  indeli- 
bly impressed  the  lesson  of  religious  toleration.  This  has 
evolved  in  our  century  into  undying  faith  in  the  beneficent  prin- 
ciples of  civil  and  religious  liberty.  The  Huguenots,  carrying 
their  pathetic  story  all  over  the  world,  were  for  a  generation  a 
people  without  a  country.  They  could  not  return  to  their  own 
land,  they  could  not  call  upon  any  government  as  its  citizens. 
They  were  taught  by  dire  experience  the  lesson  of  liberty,  now 
so  universally  recognized  as  to  be  the  commonplace  of  our  lan- 
guage and  literature.  It  was  the  Huguenot  strain  and  its 
unconscious  influence  which  inspired  Chief  Justice  Jay,  in  his 
articles  in  the  Federalist  and  in  his  work  on  the  Constitution  of  the 
United  States  and  on  the  Constitution  of  the  State  of  New  York, 
to  secure  an  expression  in  the  fundamental  law  of  religious 
liberty.  I  noticed  in  Mr.  Jay,  in  the  later  years  of  his  life,  a 
singular  premonition  that  this  principle  might  be  in  danger  and 
must  be  perpetually  guarded.  Any  act  introduced  into  the  Legis- 
lature, any  movement  upon  the  common  schools  which  seemed  to 
commit  the  State  in  any  way  to  any  sect,  found  in  him  at  once  an 
alert  and  vigorous  alarmist.  It  is  easy,  as  we  know  his  past  and 
that  of  his  ancestors,  to  understand  why  it  was  that  Mr.  Jay 
braved  social  ostracism  and  the  business  boycott  of  his  time  by 
becoming  an  Abolitionist.  The  principles  he  had  inherited  and 
the  faith  in  which  he  had  been  trained  made  the  holding  of 
human  beings  in  bondage  a  crime  and  slavery  a  sin. 

One  of  the  greatest  marvels  of  this  century  is  the  succession 
of  revolutions  following  so  fast  upon  each  other  that  the  same 
generation  lives  through  one  and  enters  upon  the  second,  to  find 
the  situation  so  changed  and  the  condition  so  different  that  the 
deadly  animosities  of  the  first  are  forgotten.  Even  those  who 
are  of  sufficient  age  to  remember  can  scarcely  recall  the  strength 
and  bitterness  of  the  almost  universal  feeling  against  Abolition- 
ists forty  years  ago.  The  Church,  the  State,  society,  finance, 
the  universities,  and  business  were  wedded  to  the  system  of 
slavery.  The  different  denominations  feared  a  disruption  be- 
tween the  North  and  the  South,  politicians  feared  a  dissolution 
of  the  Union,  manufacturers  and  merchants  feared  a  loss  of  the 
Southern  trade,  society,  which  always  follows  and  upholds  the 
popular  side,  was  almost  unanimous  with  these  controlling  forces 
of  the   Republic  and  had  nearly  constituted  the  slaveholding 


284  ORATIONS  AND  MEMORIAL  ADDRESSES 

oligarchy  an  American  nobility  and  extended  to  it  the  homage 
and  deference  belonging  to  a  superior  class.  John  Jay,  a  young 
lawyer,  with  limited  means,  lost  the  fruits  of  his  profession,  with 
the  brilliant  opportunities  that  came  from  his  high  family  and 
social  position,  lost  the  gratification  of  his  ambition  and  the 
rewards  of  political  distinction  for  which  he  had  unusual  oppor- 
tunities, and  risked  his  inherited  social  position  by  publicly  taking 
up  the  cause  and  fighting  the  battle  of  freedom  of  the  slave. 
This  period  of  his  career  furnishes  the  best  insight  into  his 
character.  Whatever  weaknesses  he  had,  and  he  undoubtedly 
had  many,  disappeared  from  sight  because  of  the  strength  and 
nobility  of  his  courage.  Courage  is  a  quality  of  comparative 
value.  It  belongs  to  every  soldier  on  the  battle  field.  Its  con- 
spicuous representatives  are,  in  one  form,  Thomas  at  Chicka- 
mauga,  in  another  Sheridan  riding  down  the  valley  to  meet  and 
reform  his  flying  columns  and  pluck  victory  from  defeat.  In 
another  form  it  is  the  explorer  in  the  interest  of  science,  risking 
his  life  among  savage  peoples  or  in  forbidding  climes.  For  each 
of  these,  however,  there  is  the  incentive  of  fame  and  the  applause 
of  the  world.  John  Jay  for  nine  successive  years  as  a  represen- 
tative in  the  diocesan  convention  of  the  Episcopal  Church,  after 
the  Bishops  and  clergy  and  the  laity  had  solemnly  reasserted  with 
eloquent  periods  and  brilliant  eloquence  the  doctrines  of  the 
New  Testament  and  the  love  of  God  for  man,  and  men  for  each 
other,  would  rise  and  as  a  fitting  supplement  to  the  speeches, 
present  a  resolution  that  the  delegates  from  the  African  Church 
of  St.  Philip  be  admitted  to  seats.  Instantly  the  scene  changed. 
The  prelates  hurriedly  consulted,  the  laymen  arose  in  indignant 
and  angry  protest,  and  the  resolution  was  shelved  or  defeated. 
Prelates  and  laymen  alike  gathered  their  garments  about  them 
as  they  passed  by  this  disturber  of  the  peace  of  the  church. 

It  was  the  motto  on  three  of  the  four  gates  of  one  of  the  old 
cities,  "Be  bold,  Be  bold,  Be  bold,"  and  upon  the  last  "Be  not  too 
bold."  Few  can  estimate,  unless  placed  in  a  similar  position,  the 
faith  and  daring,  the  endurance  and  boldness  required  to  receive 
calmly  and  not  indignantly  resent  by  a  severance  of  relations  the 
hatred  and  contempt  of  his  fellows.  Most  men  would  have  cut 
loose  from  the  church,  would  have  denounced  its  organization,  its 
members,  and  its  doctrines.  But  again  the  pure  light  of  the  value 
and  eternal  vitality  of  the  truth  which  had  burned  so  brightly  and 


MEMORIAL  OF  JOHN  JAY  285 

beneficently  in  the  experience  and  sufferings  of  the  Huguenots 
and  their  descendants  made  clear  that  the  New  Testament  and 
its  author  would  triumph  over  the  enemy  and  his  representatives 
of  the  hour.  Every  defeat  simply  strengthened  the  devotion  of 
Mr.  Jay  to  an  organization  which  he  was  wise  enough  to  see 
had  in  it  all  the  elements  of  a  great  Church,  and  that  time  and 
labor  would  redeem  it  from  its  errors. 

Forty  years  ago  not  only  through  the  South  but  with  ninety 
one-hundredths  of  the  people  of  the  North,  the  slave  was  re- 
garded as  sacred  as  property,  as  the  farm,  or  bonds  or  money. 
The  man  who  attacked  the  title  to  this  human  being  was  looked 
upon  as  we  look  to-day  upon  an  anarchist.  He  was  denied  in 
this  city,  in  the  persons  of  Phillips  and  Garrison,  an  opportunity 
to  be  heard,  and  was  killed  as  a  common  enemy,  as  was  Love  joy 
in  Illinois.  To  help  the  runaway  slave  to  escape  to  Canada  and 
freedom,  placed  the  man  who  did  it  in  the  category  of  the  receiver 
of  stolen  goods.  If  he  was  a  lawyer  clients  shunned  him  and 
courts  feared  him.  It  was  an  evidence  of  that  tranquil  faith  of 
which  martyrs  are  made,  it  was  because  his  high  social  position 
enabled  him  to  stand  up  against  the  storm  of  rage  and  ridicule, 
that  Mr.  Jay  could  appear  as  counsel  for  the  slave,  could 
command  the  attention  of  the  court,  and  could  finally  compel  a 
ruling  which  made  New  York  a  State  whose  soil  could  not  be 
trod  by  the  foot  of  a  slave.  It  is  an  historical  picture  of  singu- 
larly vivid  and  tragic  interest  to  see  this  intrepid  lawyer  standing 
beside  the  trembling  slave  who  was  before  the  court  on  a  charge 
of  grand  larceny,  in  order  that  he  might  be  extradited,  advising 
the  slave  to  plead  guilty,  on  the  ground  that  the  stripes  of  the 
criminal  in  state  prison,  with  a  consciousness  in  his  heart  of  his 
own  innocence,  were  more  honorable  than  the  chains  of  the  slave. 
The  innate  refinement,  the  sweet  and  kindly  nature  of  Mr.  Jay 
made  him  far  removed  from  the  usual  type  of  reformer  or  agita- 
tor. The  temptation  of  a  reformer  is  to  be  a  Pharisee.  He 
becomes  absorbed  in  the  good  which  his  efforts  are  to  accomplish, 
until  in  the  leadership  of  the  movement  he  sees  nothing  but  bad 
in  all  who  disagree  with  him ;  he  feels  that  he  is  infinitely  superior 
even  to  those  who  agree  with  him  but  differ  as  to  the  details  of 
the  fight.  It  requires  infinite  self-consciousness  and  introspec- 
tion for  the  successful  reformer  not  to  stand  on  a  pedestal  of  his 
own  building  with  the  proud  declaration  to  his  fellow  citizens, 


286  ORATIONS  AND  MEMORIAL  ADDRESSES 

"I  am  holier  than  thou."  It  is  difficult  for  the  agitator  not  to 
be  a  demagogue.  After  many  defeats,  many  dangers,  many  re- 
buffs, he  finally  discovers  that  there  are  tricks  of  oratory — 
appeals  to  passion,  misstatement  of  facts  and  twisting  of  the 
truth — which  will  move  audiences  and  capture  multitudes  of  the 
uneducated  or  of  the  unthinking.  He  says  "my  cause  must  win, 
my  enemies  use  these  weapons,  and  in  the  life  and  death  struggle 
in  which  I  am  engaged  I  am  entitled  to  all  the  arts  and  imple- 
ments of  war."  He  needs  indeed  marvelous  self-restraint  and 
wisdom,  remarkable  level-headedness  and  the  keenest  sense  of 
justice  to  rely  upon  the  merits  of  his  cause  and  the  strength  of 
its  presentation.  It  was  the  beauty  of  Mr.  Jay's  efforts  and  the 
charm  of  his  ultimate  triumph  that  as  a  reformer  he  effaced 
himself.  As  an  agitator  he  relied  solely  upon  the  success  of  the 
principles  of  civil  and  religious  liberty,  upon  the  ultimate  and 
sure  triumph  of  the  mission  for  which  Christ  came  upon  earth. 
As  we  in  later  years  saw  this  refined  and  sensitive  gentleman, 
the  ornament  of  every  social  circle  in  which  he  moved,  the  pattern 
of  propriety  and  humble  devoutness  in  the  church  to  which  he 
belonged,  the  most  deferential  and  considerate  of  men  to  the 
feelings  and  opinions  of  others,  the  most  conciliatory  and  yet  the 
most  firm  and  convincing  of  diplomats,  it  was  almost  impossible 
to  understand  that  it  was  the  same  man,  unchanged,  who  stood 
unmoved  amidst  the  fierce  passions  of  the  anti-slavery  excite- 
ment, and  as  a  trusted  and  recognized  leader  in  one  of  the  most 
acrimonious  and  vengeful  contests  ever  waged — a  contest  which 
ended  in  civil  war  and  was  settled  only  by  hecatombs  of  slain 
and  rivers  of  blood.  The  apostles  of  liberty  of  this  great  crisis 
in  the  history  of  our  Republic,  and  in  the  story  of  a  race  and 
the  annals  of  the  world  will  all  receive  for  all  time  their  proper 
recognition  and  honor.  Lincoln  and  Seward  and  Giddings  and 
Wade  and  Phillips  and  Garrison  and  Greeley  and  Chase  and 
Beecher  and  Parker,  according  to  their  lights  and  their  services, 
will  command  the  attention  of  posterity.  It  is  our  delightful 
duty  and  our  supreme  pleasure  to-night  to  lay  the  wreath  of  our 
love  and  praise  upon  the  memorial  of  this,  the  sweetest,  the 
gentlest,  the  most  loving,  and  yet  one  of  the  most  efficient  of  the 
apostles  of  liberty. 


MEMORIAL  OF  CHARLES  STEWART 
PARNELL 


ADDRESS  AT  THE  SERVICES  IN  MEMORY  OF  CHARLES  STEWART  PAR 
NELL1,  A* 

i5,  1891 


NELL1,  AT  THE  ACADEMY  OF  MUSIC,  NEW  YORK,  NOVEMBER 


Ladies  and  Gentlemen  :  We  are  here  to  pay  tribute  to  the 
memory  of  a  man  who  made  an  indelible  impress  upon  his  times 
and  performed  incalculable  services  for  his  country.  In  this 
audience  are  Irishmen  of  all  creeds  and  widely  divergent  views 
on  questions  affecting  Ireland,  who  for  the  evening  and  the  occa- 
sion lay  aside  their  antagonism  to  plant  a  flower  upon  the  grave 
of  one  of  the  most  eminent  of  their  race. 

The  weaknesses  and  the  errors  of  great  leaders  are  an  insep- 
arable part  of  the  elements  which  affect  their  fortunes  while 
living,  but,  when  they  are  dead,  the  sum  of  their  services  to  their 
people  is  their  monument.  A  career  crowded  with  battles,  perse- 
cutions, imprisonments,  defeats,  and  triumphs,  concentrating  in 
one  individuality  the  hopes  and  fears,  the  passions  and  resent- 
ments of  a  nation  for  centuries,  could  not  end  without  leaving 
behind  controversies  which  time  and  opportunity  alone  can  heal. 

But  we  have  not  met  to  discuss  or  settle  the  party  differences 
of  the  hour.  It  is  our  purpose  to  recognize  and  gratefully  remem- 
ber the  wisdom,  the  patriotism,  the  courage,  and  the  superb 
generalship  with  which  Charles  Stewart  Parnell  organized  and 
led  his  countrymen  to  within  sight  of  the  promised  land  of  self- 
government.  The  historian  at  this  period  cannot  write  the 
chronicles  of  Germany  without  Bismarck,  of  France  without 
Gambetta,  of  Italy  without  Cavour  and  Garibaldi,  or  of  Ireland 
without  Parnell. 

The  history  of  modern  Ireland  begins  with  the  century. 
Prior  to  that  is  a  fearful  story  of  wars,  confiscations,  executions, 
and  transportations  of  whole  populations  from  their  lands  and 

1Charles  Stewart  Parnell  (1846-1891),  Irish  patriot  and  statesman,  was  the  son  of 
John  Henry  Parnell  and  Delia  Tudor  Stewart,  daughter  of  Admiral  Charles  Stewart  of 
the  United  States  Navy.  In  1890  he  was  made  co-respondent  in  a  suit  for  divorce 
brought  by  Captain  O'Shea  against  his  wife,  whom  Parnell  afterward  married.  In  con- 
sequence of  this  entanglement  he  was  deposed  from  the  leadership  of  his  party,  but  led 
a  minority  till   his  death. — Ed. 

287 


288  ORATIONS  AND  MEMORIAL  ADDRESSES 

homes.  It  is  a  monotony  of  horrors.  All  European  countries 
have  been  ravaged  by  the  armies  of  foreign  invaders  and  devas- 
tated by  civil  strifes,  but  with  conquest  or  exhaustion  has  come 
peace.  Then  have  followed  recuperation  and  prosperity.  Com- 
merce has  revived,  manufactures  have  flourished,  internal  im- 
provements have  been  made,  new  cities  have  been  founded,  and 
old  ones  have  increased  in  inhabitants  and  importance,  and  there 
has  been  solid  growth  in  population  and  wealth. 

Ireland  forms  the  solitary  exception  to  the  beneficent  power 
of  peace.  Her  industries  have  one  by  one  been  paralyzed  until 
few  manufactures  remain,  and  those  are  confined  to  limited 
territory.  Her  population  has  been  reduced  nearly  one-half  in 
the  last  fifty  years.  Her  story  is  the  paradox  of  nations.  When 
most  at  rest  she  has  suffered  the  most  misery.  These  results 
must  be  due  to  either  the  conditions  of  climate  and  soil,  the 
temper  and  capacity  of  the  people,  or  bad  government.  The  land 
is  not  to  blame.  The  Emerald  Isle  was  fashioned  by  God  to  be 
an  earthly  paradise.  Its  fertile  fields  invite  agriculture  and 
abundantly  reward  the  husbandman.  Its  noble  harbors  ought  to 
shelter  prosperous  commerce,  and  hospitably  entertain  the  mer- 
cantile marine  of  the  world,  and  its  innumerable  locations  for  the 
successful  development  of  varied  industries  should  attract  capital 
and  enterprise.  It  is  not  the  fault  of  the  Irish  people.  Driven 
from  home,  they  have  settled  all  over  the  globe,  and  are  every- 
where distinguished  for  industry,  enterprise,  and  thrift.  They 
take  leading  positions  in  the  professions  and  in  business.  They 
show  special  aptitude  for  politics,  and  win  distinction  in  public 
life.  Then  her  condition  must  be  due  to  what  Mr.  Gladstone  has 
recently  characterized  as  centuries  of  wrong,  and  what  every 
Parliamentary  leader  in  England  for  a  half-century  has,  under 
the  pressure  of  the  evidence  of  Royal  Commissions,  or  when 
telling  the  truth  to  undermine  the  party  in  power,  denounced  in 
language  as  vigorous  as  the  passionate  utterances  of  Irish  patriots. 

The  forms  of  self-government,  without  the  spirit  of  liberty, 
work  greater  injustice  than  absolutism.  The  autocrat  can  be 
forced  to  listen  to  the  cry  of  his  people,  but  when  they  are  mis- 
represented, or  not  represented  at  all,  in  the  Federal  Congress, 
they  have  no  voice.  There  was  no  possibility  of  the  Imperial 
Parliament  hearing  or  knowing  or  caring  for  the  wrongs  or 
aspirations  of  Ireland  until  Parnell.     He  compelled  Parliament 


MEMORIAL  OF  CHARLES  STEWART  PARNELL        289 

to  hear  and  know  and  care.  Parnell  was  born  one  hundred  years 
after  Grattan,  and  he  entered  the  British  Parliament  just  a  cen- 
tury after  Grattan  became  a  member  of  the  Irish  Parliament.  It 
was  a  century  of  fruitless  struggles,  of  fearful  famine,  of  patient 
waiting,  breaking  out  occasionally  into  fierce  revolt,  to  be  re- 
pressed with  relentless  ferocity,  of  wholesale  evictions  of  tenant 
farmers  and  vast  emigrations  to  foreign  lands.  Grattan  was 
the  most  eloquent  speaker  of  a  period  famous  for  its  orators, 
and  a  commanding  genius  when  the  country  was  rich  in  men  of 
genius.  His  unequaled  appeals  for  liberty  have  been  the  inspira- 
tion of  the  patriots  of  many  lands  and  alien  tongues.  He  was 
himself  the  first-born  across  the  seas  of  the  ideas  of  the  American 
Revolution.  The  man  who  took  up  the  traditions  of  his  failure 
and  crystallized  them  into  the  forces  of  success  after  the  lapse 
of  ten  decades,  had  neither  eloquence  nor  spectacular  genius,  but 
he  possessed  the  tireless  energy,  the  grasp  of  his  surroundings, 
and  the  directness  of  aim  which  command  the  business  senates 
of  our  day. 

The  nineteenth  century  was  ushered  into  immediate  contact 
with  its  needs  and  possibilities  by  the  superb  figure  of  Daniel 
O'Connell.  He  began  in  1800  his  glorious  struggle  for  Catholic 
emancipation.  Four-fifths  of  his  countrymen  were  denied  the 
suffrage,  and  two-thirds,  on  account  of  their  religious  faith,  were 
not  permitted  the  ordinary  rights  of  person  and  property.  He 
stood  at  the  head  of  his  people  more  like  a  prophet  of  the  Old 
Testament,  who  led  by  faith,  than  a  modern  reformer.  Napo- 
leon, with  the  assistance  of  a  vast  and  complicated  machinery, 
conscripted  an  army  of  hundreds  of  thousands  of  men,  but 
O'Connell  attracted  an  audience  of  half  a  million  of  people.  He 
felt  and  enforced  the  lesson  of  liberty  that  all  men  are  equal 
before  the  law.  The  majestic  power  of  such  a  following  behind 
such  a  leader  conquered  the  prejudices  and  convinced  the  judg- 
ments of  Sir  Robert  Peel  and  the  Iron  Duke.  The  victor  of 
Waterloo  surrendered  to  the  united  demand  of  Ireland  voiced  by 
her  greatest  son.  It  was  a  signal  triumph  of  moral  force  and 
constitutional  method,  where  revolution  had  always  failed. 

The  Liberator,  as  his  countrymen  lovingly  named  him,  found 

his  victory  incomplete,  the  redemption  of  his  people  impossible 

under  the  operation  of  land  laws  which  were  the  legal  cover  for 

every  form  of  persecution  and  injustice.     With  the  suffrage  so 

Vol   1—19 


290  ORATIONS  AND  MEMORIAL  ADDRESSES 

restricted  that  there  was  no  popular  representation,  the  Irish 
delegation  was  filled  with  members  blindly  obedient  to  one  or  the 
other  of  the  two  great  English  parties,  and  indifferent  or  hostile 
to  the  interests  of  the  vast  non-voting  population  whom  they  mis- 
represented. 

It  was  not  in  the  power  of  O'Connell,  or  of  any  man,  to  in- 
form the  British  Parliament  or  the  English  constituencies  of  the 
real  condition  of  Ireland,  when  the  large  majority  of  Irish  mem- 
bers denied  the  existence  of  wrongs  to  be  righted  or  evils  to  be 
remedied.  O'Connell  saw  that  the  only  possible  relief  was  to 
have  all  Irish  questions  relegated  to  an  Irish  Parliament,  and  he 
boldly  struck  for  a  repeal  of  the  Union.  His  object  was  not 
to  dismember  the  Empire,  but  to  secure  the  administration  of 
Irish  domestic  affairs  to  the  Irish  people — a  thought  evidently 
suggested  by  the  success  of  the  federal  principle  in  the  United 
States.  The  despair  of  O'Connell  was  the  birth  of  Home  Rule. 
It  was  the  desperate  groping  in  the  dark  for  that  idea,  which, 
perfected  by  disheartening  defeats  and  discouraging  betrayals, 
is  to-day  the  aspiration  of  most  Irishmen,  and  the  belief  of  the 
majority  in  England,  Scotland,  and  Wales. 

The  patriot  and  statesman  saw  the  impending  famine.  The 
combined  operation  of  laws  which  suppressed  manufacturing 
and  varied  industries,  and  drove  a  whole  population  to  agricul- 
ture, which  permitted  neither  freedom  of  transfer  nor  security  of 
tenure,  and  subjected  whole  counties  to  rack  rents  and  evictions 
by  absentee  landlords,  was  culminating  in  one  of  the  most  fright- 
ful calamities  which  ever  befell  a  nation.  He  made  one  last 
grand  and  pathetic  appeal.  Parliament  was  deaf,  his  colleagues 
from  Ireland  were  indifferent,  and  O'Connell  died  of  a  broken 
heart. 

Three  millions  of  people  dependent  on  public  relief,  a  million 
dead  from  starvation  and  fevers,  one-half  the  population  of  the 
country  seeking,  in  exile,  homes  and  an  opportunity  to  live  are 
the  cold  figures  which  crystallize  results  for  the  historian;  but 
the  horrid  details  are  beyond  the  power  of  language  to  describe, 
or  the  imagination  to  grasp.  From  the  depths  of  this  misery 
sprang  revolution,  heroic  efforts,  desperate  conspiracies,  every 
form  of  patriotic  endeavor  or  wild  unreasoning  vengeance,  to  be 
suppressed  by  an  ever  present  and  overwhelming  force.  It  was 
the  opportunity  of  the  office-hunter  and  adventurer,  of  the  Keoghs 


MEMORIAL  OF  CHARLES  STEWART  PARNELL        291 

and  Sadliers  to  secure  by  popular  favor  power  which  could  be 
bartered  for  place  or  pelf. 

In  a  representative  government,  composed  of  different  states, 
existing  under  diverse  conditions,  the  pride  of  empire,  the  sense 
of  security,  the  feeling  of  nationality,  will  always  combine  the 
united  force  of  the  whole  against  the  effort  of  any  part  to  vio- 
lently disrupt  the  State.  While  the  fight  lasts  and  the  fever  of 
nationality  is  on,  they  will  be  blind  and  deaf  to  the  just  demand 
of  the  dissatisfied  member.  The  necessity  of  the  disaffected  and 
injured  commonwealth  is  a  competent  and  incorruptible  leader, 
and  a  united  and  loyal  representation  in  the  federal  Congress. 
Such  a  commander,  with  devoted  followers,  will  know  no  party, 
except  that  which  recognizes  his  demands;  will  permit  no  meas- 
ures to  pass  until  the  petition  of  his  people  has  been  heard  and 
its  prayer  answered. 

This  ideal  leader  was  Charles  Stewart  Parnell.  The  time 
was  not  yet  ripe  for  this  new  force.  It  was  a  needed  preparation, 
both  for  the  Irish  people  and  the  Imperial  Parliament,  that  the 
old  methods  should  be  fairly  tried  under  a  leader  of  ability  and 
integrity.  He  was  found  in  that  picturesque  and  most  interesting 
personality,  Isaac  Butt.  He  tried  to  consolidate  Irish  representa- 
tion for  Home  Rule.  He  was  compelled  to  accept  candidates 
who  cared  more  for  their  Liberal  or  Tory  affiliations  than  for 
Irish  measures.  He  was  surrounded  by  members  who  feared  the 
social  ostracism  of  London  society,  and  longed  for  the  rich  places 
in  the  British  civil  service.  Yet  this  brilliant,  courageous,  un- 
daunted patriot,  struggling  with  poverty,  besieged  by  bailiffs, 
sacrificing  his  professional  income  to  his  public  duties,  rose  from 
every  defeat,  to  begin  anew  with  unabated  ardor  and  hope,  his 
battle  for  justice  and  liberty.  His  fight  was  within  the  lines  of 
his  party,  but  he  never  succeeded  in  convincing  its  managers  that 
Ireland  had  wrongs  to  redress,  or  in  teaching  them  that  coercion 
was  not  the  way  to  settle  Irish  questions,  and  give  peace  to  the 
Emerald  Isle. 

At  the  hour  when  the  prospect  was  darkest,  and  the  Irish  were 
despairing  of  their  cause,  there  appeared  upon  the  field  a  cham- 
pion who  presented  none  of  the  externals  of  heroism  or  leader- 
ship. No  herald  trumpeted  his  coming,  no  applause  greeted  his 
arrival.  His  comrades  had  not  noticed  his  presence,  the  enemy 
was  not  aware  of  his  existence.     He  hated  publicity,  but  was 


292  ORATIONS  AND  MEMORIAL  ADDRESSES 

destined  to  be  the  most  conspicuous  figure  in  the  Empire.  He 
disliked  to  speak,  and  whenever  possible,  avoided  the  forum  or 
the  platform,  but  he  was  to  voice  effectively  the  demands  and 
principles  which  had  taxed  the  resources  of  the  greatest  orators 
of  a  nation  justly  famed  for  eloquence.  He  was  cold  in  manner, 
undemonstrative,  self -poised,  imperturbable,  neither  elated  nor 
depressed,  and  yet  he  became  the  idol  of  the  most  impulsive  of 
peoples. 

The  weakness  of  leaders  is  their  jealousy  of  talent  among 
their  followers.  Many  a  cause  has  been  imperiled  or  lost,  and 
many  a  party  driven  from  power,  because  the  chief  could  not 
endure  the  praise  bestowed  upon  his  lieutenants.  Parnell  wel- 
comed ability,  and  gave  its  possessor  every  opportunity  for  dis- 
tinction. His  superiors  in  eloquence,  like  Sexton  and  Redmond ; 
in  literature,  like  McCarthy  and  O'Connor;  in  journalism,  or 
popular  appeal,  like  Sullivan,  or  O'Brien,  or  Dillon,  or  Harring- 
ton, were  given  the  positions  where  they  could  best  serve. 

If  he  had  ambitions,  other  than  for  his  country,  they  were 
never  apparent.  If  he  had  likes  or  animosities,  they  never  stood 
in  the  way  of  a  useful  man  occupying  his  proper  place.  The 
inspiration  which  started  him  in  his  career,  and  guided  him  in 
his  work,  was  the  motto  of  the  Manchester  martyr,  "God  save 
Ireland."  He  saw  that  for  Irishmen  to  plot  against  the  Castle, 
or  hurl  themselves  on  the  bayonets  of  the  soldiery,  was  madness. 
He  proclaimed  that  any  man  who  committed  a  crime  was  a  foe 
to  Ireland.  He  found  that  Home  Rule  was  a  subject  for  debate 
which  the  House  of  Commons  would  wearily  listen  to  and  both 
parties  unite  to  kill.  And  yet  he  resolved  to  win  by  moral  force 
and  constitutional  methods.  He  became  master  of  the  rules  of 
the  House,  and  then  used  them  to  stop  its  business.  With  only 
three  who  dared  follow,  he  attacked  six  hundred  and  odd,  in- 
trenched in  the  forms,  the  usages,  and  the  traditions  of  centuries. 
"No  measures  shall  pass  until  the  demands  of  Ireland  are 
granted,"  was  his  battle-cry. 

Tories  were  shocked,  Liberals  indignant,  Radicals  amazed, 
and  the  Speaker  paralyzed.  Isaac  Butt  feared  the  result,  and 
withheld  his  support.  Shaw  thought  the  movement  was  not  re- 
spectable, and  most  of  the  Irish  members  agreed  with  him.  Par- 
liamentary procedure  is  the  growth  of  generations  of  representa- 
tive government.     It  is  the  pride  and  glory  of  England.     It  pre- 


MEMORIAL  OF  CHARLES  STEWART  PARNELL        293 

serves  the  Constitution,  and  crystallizes  into  law  the  opinions  of 
the  people.  It  permits  the  weight  of  popular  sentiment  so  to 
balance  parties  as  to  put  power  into  the  hands  of  one  which,  for 
the  time,  best  voices  public  opinion.  To  interrupt  the  smooth  and 
accustomed  working  of  this  venerable  machinery  was  accounted 
little  less  than  sacrilege,  and  believed  to  be  flat  treason.  Obstruc- 
tion buried  for  the  moment  partisan  animosities  and  ambitions, 
and  brought  together  all  elements  to  crush  the  obstructionist. 

Though  threatened  with  unknown  perils  and  punishment  and 
the  frightful  possibilities  of  being  named  by  the  Speaker;  though 
menaced  with  suspension,  and  put  under  the  ban  of  personal  and 
social  ostracism;  though  treated  with  derision  in  the  House  and 
contempt  in  the  press,  the  undismayed  and  unruffled  leader  stood 
with  his  little  band  across  the  path  of  public  business,  demanding 
justice  for  Ireland.  He  baffled  the  statesmen  who  had  led  the 
House  of  Commons  for  generations  by  showing  them  that  they 
could  neither  stop  nor  suspend  nor  expel,  for  he  was  acting 
strictly  within  their  own  rules,  and  fighting  with  weapons  from 
their  own  armory. 

"Then,"  said  Mr.  Gladstone,  "when  you  show  us  that  a  ma- 
jority of  the  members  from  Ireland  want  legislation,  we  are  pre- 
pared to  listen  and  act."  This  proposition  could  not  be  satisfac- 
torily answered.  Parnell  believed  that  the  people  of  Ireland  were 
with  him,  but  he  knew,  as  did  the  House,  that  their  representa- 
tives were  not.  Senates  do  not  go  behind  the  senators  to  canvass 
their  constituents,  and  Parnell  recognized  the  fatal  force  of  Mr. 
Gladstone's  proposition. 

Party  leaders,  as  a  rule,  are  eminent  and  powerful  within 
recognized  lines,  and  by  the  skilful  handling  of  men  and  meas- 
ures. Great  crises  develop  original  genius  for  the  emergency,  like 
Abraham  Lincoln.  They  win  triumphs  by  methods  which  the 
veteran  soldier  has  learned  neither  in  school  nor  on  the  field,  and 
which  he  either  derides  or  distrusts. 

Parnell  was  the  most  resourceful  of  men,  with  unlimited 
confidence  in  himself,  and  the  rare  faculty  which  inspires  unques- 
tioning obedience  in  others.  He  said  to  the  Irish  people:  "If  you 
believe  in  me,  you  must  be  represented  in  Parliament  by  members 
who  will  act  with  me,  and  who  can  neither  be  misled,  nor  intimi- 
dated, nor  bought.  Give  your  answer  to  Mr.  Gladstone's 
challenge." 


294  ORATIONS  AND  MEMORIAL  ADDRESSES 

The  response  has  no  parallel  in  the  history  of  the  electorate 
under  free  governments.  It  was,  "Select  your  own  candidates, 
Mr.  Parnell,  and  we  will  elect  them."  Experience  had  demon- 
strated that  under  the  pressure  and  temptations  at  Westminster 
and  the  disintegrating  influences  at  home,  something  more  than 
a  common  sentiment  was  required  to  keep  constituencies  solid 
and  members  constant.  For  this  purpose  Parnell  took  control, 
and  perfected  the  machinery  of  the  Land  League,  which  had  been 
organized  by  Michael  Davitt. 

It  is  difficult  for  Americans  to  appreciate  the  Irish  land  ques- 
tion. Real  estate,  with  us,  is  sold  and  exchanged  as  freely  as 
any  other  commodity.  A  bargain  with  regard  to  the  soil  has  all 
the  incidents  of  other  commercial  transactions.  But  the  land 
system  of  Ireland  had  made  a  large  majority  of  the  population  the 
tenants  of  a  few  landlords.  The  laws  were  wholly  on  the  side 
of  the  landowners,  and  administered  by  their  agents.  The 
comfort  or  misery  of  millions  of  human  beings,  the  peace  or 
unrest  of  the  kingdom,  as  not  dependent  upon  legislation,  but  on 
the  whim  or  wisdom  of  irresponsible  and  unrelated  individuals. 
The  necessities  of  a  spendthrift  in  London,  losses  at  the  gambling 
table  at  Homburg,  or  the  irritation  of  the  lord  against  his  vassals, 
would  raise  rents  beyond  the  possibility  of  their  being  earned,  and 
evict  thousands  to  die  by  the  roadside  without  compensation  for 
improvements  or  opportunity  for  defense. 

It  is  a  frightful  commentary  on  the  situation  that,  during  the 
famine  which  carried  over  a  million  of  men,  women,  and  children 
to  their  graves,  there  was  plenty  of  food  produced  in  Ireland,  but 
it  all  went  for  rent,  while  the  potatoes,  the  sole  resource  of  the 
tenant,  rotted  in  the  ground.  The  ship  from  America  laden  with 
provisions  for  the  starving  passed,  at  the  entrance  of  the  harbor 
of  Cork,  three  vessels  sailing  out  and  filled  with  export  wheat. 
The  British  Parliament,  the  most  conservative  of  bodies,  and 
ruled  by  landed  proprietors,  became  so  impressed  with  these  con- 
ditions that  between  1870  and  1890  it  enacted  several  of  the  most 
sweeping  acts  ever  put  upon  the  statute-book,  for  the  relief  and 
protection  of  the  tenantry  of  Ireland. 

Thus,  in  gaining  control  of  the  Land  League,  Parnell  had 
the  deepest  interests  of  the  people  as  the  foundation  for  political 
sentiment  and  personal  loyalty.  When  he  entered  Parliament 
at  the  head  of  83  out  of  the  103  representatives  from  Ireland,  he 


MEMORIAL  OF  CHARLES  STEWART  PARNELL        295 

held  in  one  hand  party  power  and  in  the  other  the  homes  and  the 
fortunes  of  his  people.  He  had  returned  in  triumph.  The  Com- 
mons were  bewildered.  The  calm  and  confident  leader  who  had 
defied  them  with  three  followers,  now  faced  them  with  the  larger 
number  of  the  Irish  members  behind  him.  "I  have  come  with  the 
majority  you  demanded,"  he  said;  "will  you  listen,  now?" 

From  that  hour  the  Irish  question  became  the  foremost  factor 
in  British  politics,  and  Parnell  the  most  powerful  member  of  the 
House  of  Commons.  The  time-worn  policy  of  coercion  put  him 
in  Kilmainham  jail,  and  it  became  not  the  cell  of  a  criminal  but 
the  palace  of  an  uncrowned  king.  The  ministry  which  imprisoned 
him  negotiated  with  him  as  with  a  conqueror.  The  question  was 
not,  on  what  terms  will  we  set  you  free,  but  on  what  terms  will 
you  accept  release?  He  did  not  mince  matters.  He  demanded, 
and  was  accorded,  the  settlement  of  arrears  of  rent,  the  amend- 
ment of  the  Land  Act,  the  abandonment  of  coercion,  and  the 
retirement  of  Mr.  Forster,  the  coercion  minister.  As  Parnell, 
fresh  from  prison,  entered  the  House,  Mr.  Forster,  the  defeated 
minister,  in  a  memorable  speech,  placed  upon  the  brow  of  the 
victor  this  wreath:  "I  think  we  may  remember  what  a  Tudor 
king  said  to  a  great  Irishman  in  former  times:  Tf  all  Ireland 
cannot  govern  the  Earl  of  Kildare,  let  the  Earl  of  Kildare  govern 
Ireland/  In  like  manner,  if  all  England  cannot  govern  the  Hon- 
orable Member  for  Cork,  then  let  us  acknowledge  that  he  is  the 
greatest  power  in  Ireland  to-day." 

The  Tories  hailed  his  alliance  with  delight.  The  members 
who  had  denounced  him  as  an  arch  conspirator,  and  believed  him 
to  be  in  league  with  assassins,  now  embraced  him  as  an  associate 
and  bid  high  for  his  support.  Local  self-government  became  a 
Conservative  war-cry.  The  principle  which  had  been  the  con- 
temptuous football  of  parties  became  the  chief  plank  in  their 
platforms. 

But  Parnell  was  insensible  to  flattery  and  unmoved  by  prom- 
ises. He  wanted  measures  and  not  pledges.  He  was  cordial 
with  the  party  which  was  at  the  moment  most  likely  to  adopt  and 
pass  his  bills,  but  he  cared  nothing  for  either  party.  He  became 
the  potential  force  in  the  Government.  He  made  and  unmade 
Cabinets.  He  hurled  the  Gladstone  ministry  from  power  and 
defeated  that  of  Lord  Salisbury.  He  compelled  the  adjournment 
of  Parliament  and  an  appeal  to  the  country. 


296  ORATIONS  AND  MEMORIAL  ADDRESSES 

The  conversion  of  Mr.  Gladstone  to  Home  Rule  for  Ireland 
is  the  most  momentous  event  in  the  English  politics  of  our  genera- 
tion. He  went  to  defeat  and  out  of  power  on  the  issue,  and  has 
steadily  kept  it  as  the  test  of  faith.  The  splendor  of  this  states- 
man's acquirements  and  achievements  obscures  his  defects  and 
weaknesses.  He  has  had,  in  his  time,  no  equal  as  the  leader  of 
the  opposition.  Peerless  as  an  orator,  resourceful,  versatile, 
aggressive,  positive,  fertile  in  attack,  and  skilful  in  retreat,  he 
soon  puts  his  adversaries  in  the  wrong  and  regains  the  confidence 
of  his  countrymen.  It  is  only  in  power  that  he  shows  uncer- 
tainty of  policy.  When  he  is  burdened  with  the  responsibilities 
of  government,  it  often  happens  that  it  is  only  after  he  has  made 
up  his  mind  that  he  is  in  doubt.  But  in  the  heat  of  battle  and  the 
fury  of  the  fight  this  hero  of  many  fields  does  not  waver,  and 
Home  Rule  is  a  desperate  struggle  until  an  Irish  Parliament 
convenes  on  Dublin  Green.  He  saw  that  Parnell  represented  the 
Irish  people,  and  formulated  a  Home  Rule  bill  to  meet  their 
demands.  His  defeat,  coming,  as  it  did,  through  the  defection 
of  cherished  friends,  intensified  his  ardor  and  confirmed  his 
purpose.  He  made  the  principle  of  Home  Rule  the  cardinal 
doctrine  of  his  party,  and  challenged  Tories  and  Liberal  Unionists 
to  go  to  the  country  upon  the  issue. 

Ireland  no  longer  fights  with  one  arm  tied,  and  the  other  held 
back  by  false  friends.  Parnell  freed  them  both.  Ireland  no 
longer  struggles  alone ;  her  cause  is  the  stake  of  one  of  the  great 
parties  of  England,  and  made  so  by  Parnell. 

Where  all  others  had  failed,  he  succeeded.  The  weary  wait- 
ing, the  almost  hopeless  struggle  of  a  century  for  local  self- 
government  has  nearly  ended,  and  the  victory  is  practically  won, 
because,  with  the  existing  and  growing  sentiment  and  party  sup- 
port in  England,  Scotland,  and  Wales,  backed  by  a  united  front 
from  Ireland,  the  first  act  of  the  Parliament  to  be  elected  next 
year  will  be  a  complete  and  satisfactory  measure  of  Home  Rule. 

This  is  the  triumph  of  Parnell.  The  laws  now  in  force  for 
the  benefit  of  Ireland,  which  are  the  direct  result  of  his  efforts, 
would  immortalize  the  memory  of  any  statesman,  and  give  him 
high  rank  on  the  list  of  patriots.  During  O'Connell's  time  every 
act  proposed  for  the  relief  of  the  Irish  people  was  killed,  but 
nineteen  bills  were  passed  suspending  the  writ  of  Habeas  Corpus, 
and  twelve  to  facilitate  evictions  and  enlarge  the  area  of  crimes 


MEMORIAL  OF  CHARLES  STEWART  PARNELL        297 

and  punishments.  Isaac  Butt's  brilliant  career  presents  to  the  his- 
torian years  of  splendid  effort  and  barren  results.  Not  a  single 
measure  of  importance  rewarded  his  labors.  Upon  Parnell's 
monument  his  grateful  countrymen  will  inscribe  four  acts  which 
are  a  distinct  recognition  of  tenants'  rights,  and  long  strides 
toward  the  redress  of  tenants'  wrongs. 

The  lesson  of  Parnell's  life  is  the  superiority  of  constitutional 
over  revolutionary  methods.  He  demonstrated  that  nothing  is 
impossible  for  Ireland  in  the  Imperial  Parliament,  if  her  sons 
are  both  united  and  wise.  His  agitation  gave  a  distinct  impulse 
to  the  English  democracy,  and  educated  and  strengthened  the 
radical  element  in  British  politics.  I  have  often  heard  the  remark 
in  London  that  Americans  interest  themselves  about  Home  Rule 
in  Ireland  only  because  the  Irish  form  so  important  a  factor  in 
the  American  electorate.  It  is  an  ignoble  reason  for  a  popular 
sympathy  which  is  universal  in  the  United  States.  Our  hearts 
have  often  been  touched  by  Irish  distress,  and  our  minds  and 
imaginations  fired  by  our  Irish  fellow-citizens,  but  Home  Rule 
appeals  to  us  as  an  American  principle.  It  has  so  superbly  stood 
the  strain  and  been  so  elastic  to  the  needs  of  a  century  of  progress, 
that  resistance  to  its  beneficent  operation  in  other  lands  arouses 
our  interest  and  excites  our  amazement. 

Parnell  appeals  to  us  with  peculiar  force  as  the  grandson  of 
Old  Ironsides.  The  victories  of  the  Constitution  were  the  pride 
and  glory  of  our  young  navy,  and  are  the  inspiration  of  our 
White  Squadron.  At  every  supreme  crisis  in  Parnell's  struggles 
were  visible  the  qualities  inherited  from  our  hero  of  the  seas.  At 
his  hour  of  greatest  danger,  when  the  Pigott  conspiracy  was 
weaving  about  him  a  chain  which  threatened  the  destruction  of 
both  himself  and  his  cause,  his  indifference  seemed  callousness 
to  crime,  and  when  completely  vindicated  and  again  the  acknowl- 
edged leader  of  a  great  Constitutional  reform,  and  at  the  moment 
of  his  greatest  triumph,  when  Liberals,  Radicals,  and  Home 
Rulers  were  greeting  him  with  cheers  such  as  never  before  re- 
sounded in  the  House,  "Parnell  stood  there  with  his  arms  folded, 
a  block  of  ice  amid  the  general  flame."  I  saw  Wendell  Phillips 
arouse  the  coldest  and  most  critical  audience  in  New  England  to 
madness  and  fury  without  making  a  gesture  or  raising  his  voice 
above  a  conversational  tone.  The  superbly  controlled  passion 
of  the  speaker  fired  the  minds  and  imaginations  of  his  hearers. 


298  ORATIONS  AND  MEMORIAL  ADDRESSES 

Their  leader  of  iron  and  ice  grew  in  the  susceptible  hearts  and 
brains  of  Irishmen  until  he  became  idealized  into  a  supernatural 
figure  sent  by  God  for  their  deliverance. 

Integrity  and  courage  are  common  qualities  in  representative 
men,  but  with  Parnell  they  were  faculties  and  forces.  Gambetta 
molded  a  Republic  out  of  chaos,  but  his  foes  were  scattered,  de- 
feated, humiliated,  and  the  vast  majority  of  his  countrymen 
were  supporting  him.  Cavour  brought  together  the  warring 
principalities  of  Italy  and  created  Italian  nationality,  but  he  was 
leading  his  people  of  one  race  and  one  creed  to  the  fulfillment  of 
of  the  dream  of  centuries.  Bismarck  touched  the  springs  of 
Teutonic  patriotism  and  confederated  the  German  Empire,  but  his 
mighty  hand  gathered  the  cords  of  unity  which  had  long  been 
waiting  the  grasp  of  a  master.  It  was  Parnell's  task  and  fame  that 
he  brought  together  four  millions  of  his  countrymen  who  had  been 
for  generations  torn  by  bitter  feuds  among  themselves,  and  then 
converted  the  thirty  millions  of  alien  race  and  faith  in  the  confed- 
erate states  of  the  empire  to  see  the  justice  of  his  course,  and 
join  in  demanding  of  the  Imperial  Parliament  that  Ireland  should 
be  granted,  for  her  domestic  affairs,  self-government  and  Home 
Rule. 

As  the  rays  of  the  morning  sun  for  coming  ages  penetrate 
the  shades  of  the  cemetery  at  Glasnevin,  and  glance  from  the  tomb 
of  O'Connell  the  Liberator  to  the  monument  of  Parnell  the  De- 
liverer, may  they  illumine  the  homes  of  a  contented,  happy,  and 
prosperous  people! 


MEMORIAL  OF  KOSSUTH 


ADDRESS  AT  THE  MEMORIAL  SERVICES  IN   HONOR  OF  LOUIS   KOS- 
SUTH/ AT  COOPER  INSTITUTE,  NEW  YORK,  APRIL  4,  1 894. 

My  Friends:  Our  meeting  to-night  is  national  and  inter- 
national. It  expresses  the  sympathy  and  sorrow  of  America  for 
the  death  of  a  patriot  who  rendered  signal  services  to  his  country, 
and  a  lover  of  liberty  whose  examples  and  teachings  have  been 
of  incalculable  benefit  to  mankind.  It  is  rare  for  a  defeated  and 
exiled  leader  to  live  to  witness  the  triumph  of  the  truth  he  main- 
tained, and  the  principles  for  which  he  fought  by  the  peaceful 
workings  of  the  teachings  he  inculcated.  It  is  rarer  for  a  states- 
man to  concentrate  in  his  person  and  professions  the  epitome  of 
the  life  and  development  of  his  people.  If  America  had  no  other 
relation  to  Kossuth  than  that  he  was  the  cause  of  the  immortal 
letter  written  by  Daniel  Webster  to  the  Austrian  Charge  d' Af- 
faires, Mr.  Hiilseman,  she  would  hold  Kossuth's  name  in  grateful 
remembrance.  That  letter  was  both  a  revelation  and  a  surprise. 
It  was  a  declaration  of  American  policy  instantly  accepted  by  all 
parties,  and  a  revelation  of  the  power,  the  prestige,  and  the  prin- 
ciples of  American  diplomacy  which  startled  every  Cabinet  and 
inspired  every  people  in  the  world.  The  Austrian  envoy  had 
complained  of  the  interest  taken  by  the  United  States  in  the 
struggle  of  the  Hungarian  people  for  independence,  and  had 
clearly  intimated  that  retaliatory  measures,  commercial  and  other- 
wise, would  be  the  inevitable  result  of  such  a  policy.  The  posi- 
tion of  the  United  States  had  been  defined  as  one  of  absolute 
non-interference  with  the  political  affairs  of  Europe.  Mr.  Web- 
ster, with  the  precision  and  power  which  made  his  teachings  im- 
mortal, put  the  United  States  in  the  family  of  nations  as  the 
friend  of  and  sympathizer  with  every  people  fighting  to  be  free. 
We  had  no  part  or  lot  in  the  feuds  or  the  compacts  between  for- 
eign nations,  but  this  Republic  was  founded  upon  the  principles 

^ajos  (Louis)  Kossuth  (1802-1894),  the  Hungarian  patriot,  released  from  prison 
at  the  joint  intercession  of  Great  Britain  and  the  United  States,  was  brought  to  this 
country  in  a  national  war  vessel  in  1851.  He  made  many  speeches  and  raised  much 
money  to  aid  Hungarian  independence,  but  his  efforts  were  futile.  He  died  in  Turin, 
Italy.— Ed. 

299 


300  ORATIONS  AND  MEMORIAL  ADDRESSES 

of  the  rights  of  man,  the  equality  of  all  men  before  the  law,  the 
denial  of  kingly  authority,  and  government  of  the  people  by  the 
people.  Not  knowing  its  own  strength  nor  its  increasing  im- 
portance, not  recognized  by  foreign  governments,  it  had  grown 
upon  this  Western  Hemisphere  until  it  was  one  of  the  greatest 
nations  upon  earth.  Though  it  could  not  be  drawn  into  the  con- 
flicts of  the  great  powers,  yet  any  people  of  any  power  who  were 
trying  by  every  effort  and  at  every  sacrifice  to  enlarge  their  liber- 
ties would  always  command  the  earnest  and  enthusiastic  sympa- 
thy of  the  United  States.  We  of  the  period,  young  or  old,  rose 
from  the  perusal  of  that  document  with  a  new  light  upon  our 
duties  and  a  new  inspiration  as  to  the  mission  of  our  Republic. 
It  sent  a  shiver  through  the  Courts  of  Europe  and  a  thrill  of 
hope  among  their  peoples. 

By  the  combined  powers  of  Austria,  of  Russia,  and  of  treason, 
Kossuth  was  defeated  and  his  cause  annihilated.  A  fugitive 
from  the  vengeance  of  the  enemies  of  his  country,  he  found 
refuge  and  hospitality  with  the  Turk.  No  government  of 
Europe  dared  relieve  Turkey  of  his  presence.  Turkey,  though 
nobly  protecting  her  hospitality,  was  in  danger  of  war,  to  which 
she  was  unequal,  unless  she  surrendered  the  patriot.  Then  it 
was  that  the  young  Republic  of  the  West  sent  its  warship  Missis- 
sippi to  Constantinople  and  said :  "We  will  receive  Kossuth  under 
our  flag  and  with  our  guns  we  will  carry  him  and  his  to  that  land 
which  is  the  asylum  of  the  oppressed  and  the  home  of  the  free.,, 
This  startling  decision  of  the  United  States  paralyzed  and  dis- 
armed the  vengeance  of  the  autocrats.  I  remember  as  a  boy  the 
landing  of  Kossuth.  The  admiration,  the  enthusiasm,  and  the 
love  of  our  people,  which  had  been  gathering  force  and  momen- 
tum during  the  voyage  across  the  Atlantic,  gave  him  an  ovation 
which  only  two  other  men  had  ever  received — Washington  and 
Lafayette. 

There  are  a  few  scattered  moments  in  life  when  the  heights 
and  depths  of  the  significance  of  the  occasion  become  too  great 
for  utterance,  when  the  thrill  of  electric  sympathy  touches  the 
whole  country  at  once,  and  brings  its  inhabitants  to  their  feet  with 
a  spiritual  shock.  Three  of  these  have  happened  in  my  time — 
the  surrender  at  Appomattox,  the  assassination  of  Abraham  Lin- 
coln, and  the  landing  of  Kossuth. 

It  was  easy  to  understand  after  listening  to  him  how  he  had 


AMOHT 


IONS  AMD  MEMOR1  ES 

.  the 
authority,  and  government  of  tl. 
strength  nor  its 
ognized  eign  governments,  it 

one  of  the 
be  drawn  into  the 
he  great  powers,  yet  any  people  of  any  power  who 
:\ud  at  every  sacrifice  to  enlarge  their  lil 

earnest  and  enthusiastic  sympa- 

of  the  period,  young  or  old,  rose 

that  document  with  a  new  light  upon  our 

to  the  mission  of  our  Republic. 

Courts  of  Europe  and  a  thrill  of 

Austria,  of  Russia,  and  of  treason, 

cause  annihilated.     A   fugitive 

engeance  of  the  enemies  of  his  country,  he   found 

ipitality    with    the    Turk      No    government    of 

Turkey,  though 
ar,  to  w 
THOMAS   JEFFERSON 


ing  of  Kossuth.  enthusiasm,  and  the 

of  our  people,  which  had  b  lering  force  and  momen- 

luring  the  voyage  across  the  Atlantic,  gave  him  an  ovation 

h  only  two  other  men  had  ever  received — Washington  and 

Lafayette. 

e  are  a  few  scattered  moments  in  life  when  the  heights 
depths  of  the  significance  of  the  occasion  become  too  great 
for  utterance,  when  the  thrill  of  electric  sympathy  touches  the 
whole  country  at  once,  and  brings  its  inhabitants  to  their  feet  with 
a  spiritual  shock.  Three  of  these  have  happened  in  my  time — 
the  surrender  at  Appomattox,  the  assassination  of  Abraham  Lin- 
coln, and  the  landing  of  Kossuth. 

It  was  easy  to  understand  after  listening  to  him  how  he  had 


\Ume*s"Y 


MEMORIAL  OF  KOSSUTH  301 

gathered  united  Hungary  at  his  back  and  united  her  people  for 
a  death  struggle  for  liberty.  Though  a  foreigner,  he  spoke  to 
us  in  our  own  majestic  tongue,  of  which  he  was  a  master.  His 
speeches  exhibited  a  power  and  a  versatility  unequaled  since 
Shakespeare,  which  enraptured  his  audiences  and  were  read  in 
every  household.  There  was  no  repetition,  though  his  theme  was 
always  the  same.  Each  oration  stood  by  itself,  a  sustained  and 
superb  argument  and  appeal  for  the  rights  of  man  and  the  liberty 
of  Hungary. 

His  mission  failed  to  materialize  immediately  as  he  desired. 
But  for  forty  years  afterward  he  was  the  centre,  he  was  the 
light,  from  which  radiated  the  principles  inspiring  peoples  of 
every  country  to  renewed  and  still  renewing  efforts  for  freedom. 
He  was  an  exile  and  in  poverty  in  a  strange  land,  and  yet  every 
day  that  he  lived  his  presence  on  earth  was  a  triphammer  driving 
the  wedge  deeper  beneath  tottering  thrones.  He  saw  Austria 
grant  Hungary  those  rights  for  which  he  labored ;  he  was  present 
in  spirit  at  every  session  of  the  Hungarian  Parliament  at  Buda- 
Pesth,  and  at  every  meeting  of  the  Austrian  Cabinet  at  Vienna. 
He  represented  so  clearly  the  truth,  and  the  truth  unalloyed,  that 
he  could  form  no  relations  with  and  could  not  be  deceived  by  a 
charlatan  like  Napoleon  the  Third,  but  attracted  to  himself  with 
resistless  magnetism  Mazzini  and  Garibaldi.  Italy,  freed  and 
united,  gave  him  an  asylum.  From  the  little  villa  at  Turin  went 
an  influence  which  was  felt  in  the  politics,  in  the  policies,  in  the 
liberalization,  in  the  aspirations  of  every  country  in  Europe. 

When  Kossuth  was  ninety  years  of  age  the  time  in  which  the 
Hungarian  rebels  could  avail  themselves  of  the  amnesty  which 
had  been  granted  them  ended.  He  then  became  for  the  first  time 
in  history  the  realization  of  the  most  startling  and  interesting 
character  in  fiction — a  "man  without  a  country."  He  owed 
fealty  to  no  government,  he  was  under  the  protection  of  no  flag. 
He  had  a  distinction  never  before  attained  by  mortal  man — he 
was  a  citizen  of  the  world. 

The  United  States  would  have  loved  to  claim  him,  but  he 
would  not  come ;  England  would  have  honored  him,  but  he  could 
not  go ;  the  Republic  of  France  would  have  naturalized  him,  but 
he  had  a  higher  mission;  Italy  would  have  made  him  an  honored 
citizen,  but  he  could  not  recognize  the  authority  of  a  king.  And 
yet  he  was  not  alone.    About  him  stood  the  mighty  spirits  of  the 


302  ORATIONS  AND  MEMORIAL  ADDRESSES 

past  who  had  fought  and  become  immortal  in  the  cause  of  liberty. 
From  England  came  John  Hampden,  from  France  Lafayette, 
from  Italy  Mazzini  and  Garibaldi,  from  Holland  William  of 
Orange,  from  other  countries  the  dead  leaders  of  liberal  thought, 
and  from  America  George  Washington.  With  spirit  hands 
of  benediction  and  welcome  they  said  to  him:  "We  your  fellow 
citizens." 


MEMORIAL  OF  GENERAL  HUSTED 


ADDRESS  AT  THE  MEMORIAL  SERVICES  IN  HONOR  OF  GENERAL 
JAMES  W.  HUSTED/  BY  THE  LEGISLATURE  OF  THE  STATE  OF 
NEW  YORK,,  IN  THE  ASSEMBLY  CHAMBER,  AT  ALBANY,  MARCH 
28,  1893. 

Senators  and  Members  of  Assembly:  In  the  fall  of  1852 
I  stood  on  the  campus  at  Yale  College,  a  country  lad,  just  entered 
in  the  freshman  class.  I  had  neither  friend  nor  acquaintance  in 
New  Haven,  and  was  utterly  lonesome  and  homesick.  A  hand- 
some young  man,  with  brilliant  eyes,  a  mass  of  wavy  auburn  hair, 
flowing  to  his  shoulders,  and  a  gay  debonair  way,  stepped  briskly 
up  to  me,  and  with  a  cordial  grasp,  as  if  we  had  been  life-long 
friends,  said,  "my  name  is  Husted,  I  am  a  Junior,  and  we  are 
both  from  Westchester  County."  This  was  the  beginning  of  our 
attachment,  which  remained  unbroken  amid  all  the  wonderful 
changes  and  vicissitudes  of  the  future,  and  ripened  and  deepened 
with  time,  until  our  relations  were  ended  by  the  death  of  General 
Husted  forty  years  afterwards.  The  undergraduate  was  then 
developing  the  qualities  which  were  the  elements  of  his  success. 
He  was  not  a  close  student,  but  very  active  in  the  work  of  the 
literary  societies.  He  was  not  a  factor  of  importance  in  the 
competition  for  scholastic  honors,  but  he  was  a  potential  force  in 
college  politics.  He  cared  little  who  was  to  be  the  valedictorian, 
but  was  uncommonly  anxious  to  be  the  leader  of  his  class.  He 
was  an  excellent  classical  scholar,  and  always  kept  up  his  easy 
familiarity  with  Latin  and  Greek,  but  believed  with  Pope,  that 

"The  proper  study  of  mankind  is  man." 

Like  all  the  men  who  have  risen  to  distinction  in  our  country, 
he  was  compelled  to  work  from  the  start  and,  without  other 
assistance  than  his  own  industry  and  ability,  make  his  own  career. 
His  remarkable  power  of  lucid  explanation  made  him  an  ad- 
mirable teacher.  The  Academy  which  he  taught  after  leaving 
college,  to  secure  the  means  for  prosecuting  his  law  studies,  never 

1  James  William  Husted   (1833-1892),  popularly  known  as  the  "Bald  Eagle  of  West- 
chester," was  of  the  Class  of  1854,  Yale.— Ed. 

303 


304  ORATIONS  AND  MEMORIAL  ADDRESSES 

had  a  better  principal,  and  he  continued  to  teach  until  his  admis- 
sion to  the  Bar.  He  leaped  into  the  political  arena  as  soon  as  he 
received  his  diploma,  and  had  won  the  respect  and  recognition  of 
the  county  leaders  before  he  began  practising  his  profession. 
He  was  faithful  to  the  trusts  which  he  assumed  as  either  teacher 
or  lawyer,  or  business  man,  but  his  models  were  the  statesmen  of 
the  country,  and  his  ambitions  and  aspirations  were  for  public 
life.  It  was  thirty-eight  years  from  his  graduation  to  his  death, 
and  as  School  Commissioner,  Deputy  Superintendent  of  the  In- 
surance Department,  Harbor  Master,  Deputy  Captain  of  the  Port, 
Emigration  Commissioner,  and  Member  of  the  Legislature,  he 
was  for  thirty-five  years  in  responsible  positions  in  our  State 
Government.  But  he  was  also,  during  this  active  and  busy  pe- 
riod, Judge  Advocate  of  the  Seventh  Brigade,  Major  General 
of  the  Fifth  Division  of  the  National  Guard,  and  Grand  Master 
of  the  Masonic  Fraternity  of  the  State  of  New  York. 

He  served  twenty-two  terms  in  the  House  of  Assembly,  and 
was  six  times  its  Speaker,  a  record  unequaled,  either  in  length 
of  service,  or  in  the  number  of  elections  as  presiding  officer  of 
the  popular  branch  of  the  Legislature,  in  the  history  of  the  State. 
He  grasped  intuitively  the  conditions  in  his  district,  and  possessed 
endless  fertility  of  resource  and  audacity  for  attack.  In  the 
quickness  of  his  movements  and  combinations  he  resembled  Gen- 
eral Sheridan,  and  the  suddenness  and  brilliancy  of  his  assault  was 
like  a  cavalry  charge  of  Murat's.  While  still  a  law  student,  he 
upset  the  calculations  and  defeated  the  plans  of  the  veteran  party 
managers,  and  by  a  creation  and  coalition  as  original  as  it  was 
bold,  carried  the  Third  District  of  Westchester  and  elected  him- 
self School  Commissioner.  Rockland  County  had  always  been 
a  Democratic  stronghold.  It  was  in  the  same  Senatorial  and 
Congressional  District  as  Westchester,  and  General  Husted  had 
frequently  canvassed  it  and  was  thoroughly  familiar  with  its 
people.  After  he  had  served  nine  terms  in  the  Assembly  from 
Westchester  County,  the  Republicans  of  Rockland  invited  him  to 
come  over  and  lead  the  forlorn  hope.  His  quick  eye  detected  a 
division  in  the  apparently  solid  ranks  of  the  enemy.  He  accepted 
the  nomination  in  Rockland  for  Member  of  Assembly,  and  to  the 
surprise  of  the  State  and  the  country,  carried  the  county  twice. 
He  thus  accomplished  a  doubly  difficult  task,  first  in  overcoming  a 
majority  which  had  always  been  overwhelmingly  against  his 


MEMORIAL  OF  GENERAL  HUSTED  305 

party,  and  secondly  in  succeeding  against  the  strong  local  preju- 
dices which  always  exist  in  our  constituencies  against  a  candidate 
who  is  not  a  resident  of  the  district. 

It  would  greatly  strengthen  and  improve  our  public  life  if  this 
custom  were  more  elastic.  No  matter  how  able  or  useful  a  repre- 
sentative may  be,  no  matter  how  valuable  to  good  government, 
or  to  the  position  and  power  of  his  party,  his  political  career  is 
dependent  upon  the  accidents  in  the  district  where  he  may  happen 
to  reside.  If  constituencies  could  and  would  choose  from  candi- 
dates without  regard  to  residence,  men  like  Mr.  Blaine  or  Mr. 
Thurman  would  always  be  in  their  proper  places,  leading  their 
respective  parties,  and  giving  their  genius  for  affairs  and  ripe  ex- 
perience to  the  service  of  their  country.  The  statesman  who  had 
been  beaten  by  a  nobody  upon  some  local  issue  could  find  a  con- 
stituency devoted  to  national  questions  which  would  gladly  return 
him,  and  have  pride  in  the  fame  of  their  member. 

General  Husted  entered  the  field  of  State  politics  at  a  time 
when  an  old  dynasty  was  crumbling  to  pieces.  New  York  has  been 
singular  in  the  domination  of  her  great  parties  by  individuals  or 
cliques.  They  have  always  been  arbitrary  and  autocratic,  and 
often  tyrannical.  It  is  said  of  a  Parliamentary  district  in  Lon- 
don, which  will  always  give  a  larger  majority  for  a  titled  candi- 
date than  for  a  commoner,  that  Marylebone  dearly  loves  a  lord. 
So  our  State  for  more  than  half  a  century  has  shown  a  decided 
preference  for  what  partisans  call  a  leader,  and  the  public  a  boss. 
Power  is  exercised,  either  in  the  recognition  and  promotion  of 
ability,  or  in  a  merciless  crusade  against  talent  and  ambition,  and 
the  ruthless  slaughter  of  independent  thought  or  action.  In  the 
one  case  the  party  grows  in  strength  and  opportunity,  and  in  the 
other  it  falls  finally  into  the  hands  of  a  diminishing  number  until 
the  hardships  of  defeat  have  restored  its  vitality  and  vigor. 
Edwin  Crosswell  and  the  Albany  Argus  had  ruled  the  Democratic 
Party  for  a  long  time,  and  Thurlow  Weed  had  controlled  the 
Whig,  and  afterwards  the  Republican  Party,  more  than  thirty 
years.  There  was  little  opportunity  for  young  men  in  either 
organization,  and  revolts  against  the  leaders  were  becoming  more 
frequent  and  formidable.  The  alliance  between  Seward,  Weed, 
and  Greeley,  which  had  exercised  such  a  powerful  and  historical 
influence  upon  the  affairs  of  both  the  State  and  Nation,  had 
been  dissolved  by  the  retirement  of  the  junior  member.  Roscoe 
Vol.  1—20 


306  ORATIONS  AND  MEMORIAL  ADDRESSES 

Conkling  and  Reuben  E.  Fenton  were  righting  the  machine  and 
denouncing  machine  rule  and  machine  methods  with  a  force  and 
eloquence  which  have  never  been  equalled.  The  subsequent  posi- 
tion of  both  these  exceedingly  able  and  successful  men  on  this 
question,  is  a  remarkable  illustration  of  the  irony  of  political 
evolution. 

Young  men  usually  find  that  where  the  party  is  cliqued  the 
only  way  to  secure  favors  or  recognition  is  by  making  the  leaders 
fear  them.  But  in  associations  formed  by  such  considerations 
there  is  neither  faith  nor  fidelity.  Thurlow  Weed  maintained 
his  supremacy  for  a  generation  because  of  the  wisdom  and  lib- 
erality of  his  methods.  The  rule  usually  is  to  repel  assistance, 
especially  from  strong  men,  because  of  jealousy,  and  also  on  the 
principle  that  the  more  numerous  the  victors  the  more  minute 
is  the  division  of  the  spoils.  Mr.  Weed,  for  the  greater  part  of 
his  long  reign,  was  constantly  recruiting  his  forces.  When  a 
young  man  he  displayed  conspicuous  ability,  either  in  the  Legis- 
lature, or  State  Convention,  or  upon  the  platform,  his  acquaint- 
ance was  sought  and  his  friendship  gained.  This  constant  re- 
placement of  losses,  and  strengthening  of  his  organization  with 
fresh  and  vigorous  members,  made  him  invincible  for  a  genera- 
tion. Horace  Greeley  was  unequalled  as  a  partisan  editor,  but 
he  could  not  contest  the  leadership  with  Thurlow  Weed.  He  was 
a  great  thinker  and  writer,  but  the  weakest,  and  most  uncertain 
of  political  captains.  He  was  so  vacillating  in  his  movements, 
and  so  credulous  in  his  judgment  of  men,  that  his  selection  of 
lieutenants  was  often  unfortunate,  and  sometimes  whimsical.  In 
the  last  years  of  Mr.  Weed's  active  control  of  the  party,  he 
changed  his  policy.  The  able  men  who  had  acted  with,  and 
under  him  so  long,  fearing  the  vigorous  youth  who  were  forging 
to  the  front,  aroused  his  distrust  of  these  pushing  ambitions. 
The  result  was  first  revolt,  and  then  revolution  within  the  party, 
and  next  its  defeat  in  the  State. 

Independence  of  thought  and  action  have  unrestrained  oppor- 
tunity when  a  party  is  in  the  minority.  Rewards  and  punish- 
ments are  no  longer  factors  in  caucusses  or  conventions,  and 
influence  is  proportioned  to  merit.  It  was  some  years  after  the 
fall  of  Thurlow  Weed,  before  the  party  found  a  new  leader. 
During  this  period  a  number  of  young  men,  of  brilliant  ability 
and  great  promise,  came  prominently  before  the  public.     Many 


MEMORIAL  OF  GENERAL  HUSTED  307 

of  them  disappeared  afterwards,  either  losing  their  constituencies, 
or  being  crushed  out  by  some  one  of  the  subsequent  machines. 
General  Husted  was  one  of  the  few,  out  of  the  many  products 
of  the  period  of  party  liberty,  who  survived  all  the  accidents  of 
warring  and  changing  factions.  He  was  more  frequently  in 
opposition  to,  than  in  accord  with,  the  machine.  As  one  was 
broken  and  another  constructed,  he  would  still  find  himself  antag- 
onized by  it.  He  had  views  and  would  express  them,  and  he 
wanted  reasons  before  he  would  obey  orders.  These  qualities 
made  him  objectionable  to  the  leaders  as  they  severally  came  into 
power.  They  repeatedly  thwarted  his  ambitions  for  State  office, 
and  for  Federal  appointments,  but  were  able  only  once  to  dislodge 
him  in  his  district.  They  tried  to  beat  him  by  third  candidates, 
they  endeavored  to  defeat  his  nominations  by  capturing  his 
friends  with  places  in  the  Custom  House  and  the  Post  Office,  and 
on  several  occasions,  preferring  a  Democrat  to  a  Republican  they 
could  not  absolutely  control,  they  furnished  secret  but  substantial 
support  to  his  opponent.  But  nothing  could  shake  his  hold  upon 
his  people.     They  knew  him,  and  he  knew  them. 

He  saw  the  power  of  Thurlow  Weed  pass  away,  he  held  his 
own  during  the  brief  sway  of  Horace  Greeley,  he  kept  his  posi- 
tion under  the  rule  of  Reuben  E.  Fenton,  and  the  mastery  of 
Roscoe  Conkling,  and  notwithstanding  all  the  kaleidoscopic 
changes  following  the  retirement  of  Senator  Conkling,  he  died 
as  he  had  lived  for  twenty- two  years,  still  Member  of  the  Assem- 
bly for  the  Third  District  of  Westchester.  General  Husted's 
tact,  talents,  and  unselfish  desire  to  be  useful,  made  him  the  se- 
lected friend  in  the  House  of  Assembly  of  every  Governor  of  the 
State,  no  matter  what  the  politics  of  the  Executive.  Hoffman, 
Dix,  Tilden,  Robinson,  Cornell,  Cleveland,  Hill,  and  Flower  were 
successively  the  chief  magistrates  of  the  Commonwealth  during 
General  Husted's  service  in  the  Legislature,  and  with  each  of 
them  his  relations  were  close  and  cordial.  He  was  above  small 
partisanship  and  cheap  politics.  He  believed  the  Governor  of  the 
State  of  New  York  occupied  a  large  place,  and  that  the  Legisla- 
ture should  do  all  in  its  power  to  enable  him  to  sustain  its  dignity. 
On  strictly  party  measures,  he  would  always  act  with  his  party. 
But  a  Governor  can  be  annoyed  or  assisted  in  numberless  ways, 
which  affect  only  his  personal  comfort  and  legitimate  powers. 
In  such  cases,  if  the  Republicans  were  in  the  majority  in  the 


308  ORATIONS  AND  MEMORIAL  ADDRESSES 

Legislature,  Husted  was  the  Governor's  most  efficient  friend,  and 
if  the  Democrats  were  in  power,  he  was  still  the  most  important 
factor  in  the  Capitol.  Those  who  wanted  to  get  revenge  because 
some  bill  had  been  vetoed,  or  an  appointment  to  office  had  not  been 
made,  and  those  who  thought  it  good  politics  to  cramp  the  con- 
veniences of  help,  or  material  for  the  Executive  Chamber,  or  the 
Executive  Mansion,  found  in  the  General  an  alert,  able,  and  gen-? 
erally  successful  enemy.  Governor  Tilden's  fame  and  career 
depended  upon  his  carrying  through  the  Assembly,  while  he  was 
a  member,  his  resolution  for  the  impeachment  of  the  ring  judges. 
And  yet  he  would  have  failed,  but  for  the  assistance  and  consum- 
mate parliamentary  skill  of  the  member  from  Westchester.  Mr. 
Tilden  never  forgot  this  service,  and  tried  in  after  years  in  many 
ways  to  show  his  appreciation  and  gratitude.  He  thought  that 
Husted,  from  his  associations  and  intimacies,  would  join  the 
Greeley  movement,  which  might  peril  his  political  future,  and  at 
great  inconvenience  and  trouble,  he  conveyed  early  information 
to  the  General  of  the  Republican  victory  in  North  Carolina,  which 
virtually  decided  the  contest  against  the  editor  of  the  Tribune. 

Our  departed  friend  saw,  as  no  other  public  man  has  been 
permitted  to  observe,  the  triumphs  and  defeats,  the  hopes  and  dis- 
appointments, the  joys  and  sorrows,  the  realities  and  the  romance 
of  political  careers.  Every  conspicuous  figure  in  either  party 
during  the  past  quarter  of  a  century  has  been  his  associate  and 
his  friend.  I  have  referred  to  his  relations  with  the  men  who 
received  the  honors,  and  at  times  controlled  the  organization  of 
the  Republican  Party  in  our  State.  But  he  was  with  Tilden  when 
that  statesman  was  hovering  between  fame  and  oblivion,  and  en- 
joyed his  familiar  intimacy  and  confidence  during  his  guberna- 
torial term.  As  a  veteran  leader  in  the  Assembly,  he  witnessed 
the  meteoric  advent  of  Mr.  Cleveland  in  Albany,  and  divined  the 
power  which  has  developed  such  phenomenal  strength  in  the  State 
and  in  the  country.  He  was  serving  his  fourth  term  in  the  Legis- 
lature when  a  member  from  Chemung,  then  scarcely  known  be- 
yond the  boundaries  of  his  county,  began  a  career  which  has 
harvested  the  lieutenant-governorship  and  chief  magistracy  of 
our  State,  and  United  States  Senator,  and  made  David  B.  Hill 
a  potent  force  in  the  counsels  of  his  party.  Speakers  of  the  As- 
sembly George  B.  Sloan  and  George  H.  Sharpe,  Titus  Sheard  and 
George  Z.  Erwin,  Fremont  Cole  and  William  F.  Sheehan,  Robert 


MEMORIAL  OF  GENERAL  HUSTED  309 

P.  Bush  and  William  Sulzer,  were  not  only  his  associates  but 
his  pupils  and  prize  winners  in  parliamentary  law. 

There  is  no  talent  more  common  than  the  ability  to  speak,  and 
none  more  rare  than  the  gift  of  speaking  so  as  to  command  the 
attention  and  substantial  assent  of  the  audience.  The  ordinary 
talker  in  a  deliberative  body  kills  time  and  murders  patience, 
irritates  the  indifferent,  and  tires  his  friends.  Real  debating 
power  is  a  gift,  as  brilliant  as  it  is  useful.  It  does  not  consist 
in  elaborate  effort,  in  the  length  of  the  speech,  in  superiority  of 
logic,  grace  of  diction,  or  rhetorical  finish.  Any  or  all  of  these 
may  prove  a  detriment,  though,  with  the  master,  they  are  tools  to 
be  used,  or  not,  as  the  occasion  may  require.  Many  a  massive 
structure  which  the  orator  has  spent  hours  in  erecting,  has  been 
demolished,  and  has  buried  its  author  under  its  ruins,  by  the 
dynamite  of  a  ten  minutes'  speech.  Legislatures  fear  bores  and 
resent  pedagogues.  They  love  good  fighters  and  hard  hitters. 
Like  veteran  troops,  they  do  not  want  to  be  instructed  but  to  be 
led.  They  may  sleep  through  a  ponderous  oration  of  Charles 
Sumner,  and  rise  with  delight  to  greet  an  incisive  sarcasm  of 
Thaddeus  Stevens.  There  are  occasions  when  a  labored  effort 
is  necessary  to  outline  or  defend  a  policy,  or  to  appeal  to  the  party 
or  the  country.  But  in  the  exigencies  of  daily  discussion  it  is 
the  crisp,  lucid,  and  direct  debater  who  carries  or  defeats  meas- 
ures. The  skilful  parliamentarian  knows  instinctively  the  temper 
of  the  House.  His  greatest  triumphs  are  in  humoring  its  moods. 
No  member  was  ever  more  complete  master  of  this  art  than 
General  Husted.  No  member  ever  passed  or  defeated  so  many 
bills.  His  speeches  were  rarely  a  half  an  hour  in  length,  and 
most  of  them  not  over  ten  minutes.  He  captured  the  attention 
of  the  Assembly  with  his  first  sentence,  and  had  its  approval 
before  he  closed.  He  was  not  speaking  for  posterity,  but  to  carry 
his  point.  The  debate  would  drag  wearily  on.  The  impatient 
House  would  have  listened  to  the  dry  statistician,  and  the  dreary 
logician,  to  the  spread  eagle  orator  careering  among  the  constella- 
tions, colliding  with  the  planets  and  strewing  the  floor  with  star 
dust,  and  to  the  exhaustive  and  exhausting  essayist  with  whom 
all  arguments  are  alike  important,  and  the  quantity  of  whose 
matter  obscures  its  quality.  Suddenly,  a  ringing  voice,  shouting 
"Mr.  Speaker/'  would  rouse  every  one,  like  an  electric  shock. 
The  flashing  eyes  of  the  Bald  Eagle  of  Westchester  would  cast  a 


310  ORATIONS  AND  MEMORIAL  ADDRESSES 

sweeping  glance  about  the  Chamber,  and  arrest  universal  atten- 
tion. The  weak  positions  taken  by  his  enemy  would  be  quickly 
turned,  the  reasons  for  his  side  as  quickly  and  succinctly  stated, 
a  burst  of  humor  would  give  the  laugh  of  friends  and  enemies 
alike,  to  one  adversary,  and  a  biting  sarcasm  to  the  delight  of  the 
audience,  pierce  another,  and  the  tired  and  impatient  House 
hailing  him  as  their  deliverer  would  follow  his  lead. 

He  was  the  friend  and  protector  of  young  members.  Few 
positions  are  more  difficult  and  embarrassing  than  those  of  a  new 
member,  whose  constituency  have  elected  him  to  pass  certain 
measures.  He  is  ignorant  alike  of  the  rules  of  the  Assembly,  and 
of  Jefferson's  Manual.  He  soon  finds  himself  lost  in  a  labyrinth 
from  which  he  can  extricate  neither  himself  nor  his  bills.  He  is 
in  despair  between  his  impotency  at  the  Capitol,  and  his  waning 
prestige  and  popularity  at  home.  His  colleagues,  as  a  rule,  are 
too  much  absorbed  in  their  own  to  heed  or  care  for  his  matters. 
The  veteran  member  from  Westchester  was  ever  watchful  for 
such  signs  of  distress.  Even  while  the  House  was  smiling  at  the 
bungling  efforts  of  the  proposer  of  the  bill,  or  derisively  laughing 
at  his  mistakes,  a  masterhand  would  take  hold  of  the  measure, 
and  its  easy  and  uninterrupted  movement  would  seem  inspired  by 
the  wand  of  a  magician. 

The  hostility  of  his  party  leaders  would  often  consign  him 
to  minor  places  on  the  committees,  and  the  rear  rank  among  his 
associates,  and  yet  before  the  session  was  half  over,  his  unequalled 
talent  on  the  floor  and  the  devoted  following  of  new  members 
whom  he  had  assisted  or  rescued,  would  put  him  in  his  proper 
place,  and  make  the  leaders,  temporarily  at  least,  his  suppliants. 
He  was  so  fair  a  political  opponent,  and  always  so  ready  cheer- 
fully to  help  members  of  the  other  party  on  matters  which  were 
not  partisan,  that  they  were  only  too  glad  to  reciprocate  when 
occasion  offered.  This  assistance  was  of  great  service  to  him  in 
several  crises  of  his  career.  There  were  times  when  it  might 
have  been  good  politics  for  the  Democrats  to  have  joined  with 
the  organization  of  his  own  party  to  crush  the  General  out.  But 
they  never  did.  When  the  question  related  solely  to  his  personal 
fortunes,  and  his  position  in  the  House,  they  did  what  he  asked, 
and  often  followed  his  lead  in  those  sudden  and  audacious 
assaults  upon  his  adversaries  which  totally  routed  them,  and 
scored  for  him  a  significant  individual  victory. 


MEMORIAL  OF  GENERAL  HUSTED  311 

And  yet  this  dashing  fighter,  this  fierce  cavalier,  this  most 
reckless  and  daring  of  combatants,  was  incapable  of  harboring  or 
retaining  an  enmity.  He  never  knew  the  feeling,  which  is  the 
luxury  of  some  natures,  of  hate.  If  he  had  not  been  so  buoyant, 
supremely  hopeful,  and  sincere,  he  might  justly  have  been  charged 
with  regarding  politics  as  a  game,  with  the  gambler's  admiration 
for  the  winner  and  sympathy  for  the  loser.  He  was  a  thorough 
partisan,  and  during  all  his  life  did  yeoman's  service  for  his  party. 
He  could  not  understand  why  differences  of  political  faith,  or 
policy,  should  lead  to  personal  enmities.  The  most  childish,  and 
the  most  frequent  exhibition  of  spleen  among  politicians,  is  that 
of  the  man  in  your  own,  or  the  opposition  party  with  whom  you 
have  a  disagreement  growing  out  of  purely  political  affairs,  who 
thereafter  withdraws  from  you  the  honor  of  his  recognition  or 
acquaintance.  It  shows  both  the  vulnerable  places  in  that  states- 
man's armor,  and  an  appreciation  by  himself  of  his  nod,  absurdly 
disproportionate  to  its  value.  It  is  a  practice,  which  so  grows  by 
indulgence,  that  its  proud  possessor  is  sometimes  himself  in  doubt 
whether  the  person  he  meets  may  not  be  on  the  list  of  the  excom- 
municated, and  groping  helplessly  in  the  Cimmerian  darkness 
which  envelops  all  those  whose  atmosphere  is  not  illumined  by 
his  approving  smile.  It  was  never  necessary  for  General  Husted 
to  consult  a  memorandum  book  before  he  spoke  to  a  man.  He 
cordially  greeted  everybody,  and  that  one  the  most  warmly  with 
whom  he  had  the  last  battle.  If  he  was  worsted,  he  was  the  first 
to  compliment  his  adversary  upon  his  victory,  and  if  he  was  him- 
self the  victor,  he  doubly  disarmed  his  enemy  by  the  generosity 
of  his  treatment.  He  loved  to  gather  about  his  hospitable  table 
his  legislative,  or  party  opponents,  and  discuss  the  fields  they  had 
fought,  the  feints,  the  assaults,  the  retreats,  the  false  movements, 
the  mistaken  manoeuvres  and  recount  with  hilarious  glee,  the  un- 
expected stroke  which  had  turned  the  flank  of  the  enemy,  and 
won  the  day. 

Those  who  have  never  been  in  public  life,  or  active  in  politics, 
know  nothing  of  their  exquisite  pleasures,  and  keen  disappoint- 
ments. It  is  the  compensations  of  a  career  which  make  life  worth 
the  living.  If  it  was  all  joy,  or  all  sorrow,  there  would  be  noth- 
ing in  it.  The  politician  is  always  either  in  paradise  or  purgatory, 
and  he  is  ever  struggling  to  stay  in  the  one  sphere,  or  to  get  out 
gf  the  other.     The  intensity  and  strain,  the  uncertainties  and  acci- 


312  ORATIONS  AND  MEMORIAL  ADDRESSES 

dents  of  politics  make  possible  the  warmest  attachments  among 
politicians.     This  is  specially  true  between  those  of  opposite 
faith.     They  fight  only  on  broad  lines,  and  are  free  from  the 
irritations  of  faction  feuds.     They  generously  appreciate  the  good 
qualities  and  abilities,  each  of  the  other,  and  are  bound  together 
in  bonds  of  closest  friendship.     General  Husted  was  peculiarly 
felicitous  in  making,  and  happy  in  retaining,  these  relations.     His 
most  ardent  admirers,  and  steadfast  friends  were  to  be  found, 
among  the  leaders  of  the  opposition.     It  was  the  chivalrous  spirit 
and  actions  of  the  man  which  won  the  applause  and  affections 
of  his  political  foes.     There  were  few  deeper  or  more  sincere 
mourners  at  his  funeral  than  those  whom  he  had  conquered,  or 
been  defeated  by,  on  many  a  fair  field,  and  in  many  a  fair  fight. 
The  Legislature,  and  its  popular  Assembly,  concentrate  the 
attention  of  the  people  much  more  than  the  executive  or  the  judi- 
cial branches  of  free  government.     The  representatives  are  in 
closer  relations  with  the  constituencies.     It  is  from  the  lower 
house,  as  a  rule,  that  the  highest  honors  are  attained.     Five  of 
General  Husted's  colleagues  have  been  Governors,  two  of  them 
United   States    Senators,    three   Lieutenant-governors,    eighteen 
State  officers,  fourteen  have  been  members  of  Congress,  twelve 
have  been  elevated  to  the  Bench,  and  many  have  served  with  dis- 
tinction in  important  positions  under  the  Federal  Government. 
There  is  a  peculiar  fascination  about  the  three  chief  positions 
in  a  deliberative  body.     The  Speaker,  the  leader  of  the  House, 
and  the  leader  of  the. opposition,  are  the  great  men  of  the  hour, 
and  have  rare  opportunities  for  permanent  fame.     The  very  few 
whose  names  we  can  recall  in  our  century  of  Congressional  life, 
who  have  attained  distinction  in  any  of  these  positions,  indicate 
how  rare  is  parliamentary  ability  of  the  first  order;  and  the 
limited  number  who  were  eminent  in  all  three  departments,  illus- 
trate the  genius  required  to  fill  them.     A  successful  leader  of  the 
House  may  prove  a  poor  general  for  the  opposition,  and  be  a  total 
failure  as  a  Speaker.     We  have,  as  yet,  produced  but  two  states- 
men who  were  conspicuously  great,  and  unequalled  both  on  the 
floor  and  as  presiding  officers,  Henry  Clay  and  James  G.  Blaine. 
The  judicial  impartiality  of  the  Chair,  and  the  blind  partisanship 
of  the  floor,  require  experience,  and  qualities  so  distinct,  and 
antagonistic,  that  their  possession  rarely  appears  more  than  once 
in  a  generation.     There  have  been  some,  but  not  many,  who 


MEMORIAL  OF  GENERAL  HUSTED  313 

excelled  General  Husted  as  a  leader  of  the  House,  and  some,  but 
not  many,  who  surpassed  him  as  a  leader  of  the  opposition,  but 
not  even  Clay  or  Blaine  were  his  superiors  as  a  Presiding  Officer. 
The  celerity  with  which  he  would  unravel  a  tangle  of  cumulative, 
and  contradictory  motions  and  amendments,  the  certainty  of  his 
positions,  the  clearness  and  directness  of  his  decisions,  and  the 
ability  with  which  he  brought  order  out  of  chaos,  and  quieted 
the  most  disorderly  and  tumultuous  assemblage,  were  strokes  of 
genius.  He  never  made  a  mistake  which  he  could  not  correct 
and  never  a  misstep  from  which  he  could  not  instantly  land  on 
firmer  ground. 

It  well  repaid  a  visit  to  the  Capitol  to  see  Speaker  Husted 
preside.  The  gratification  of  witnessing  an  important  thing  done 
perfectly,  is  almost  as  great  as  to  do  it  oneself.  The  artistic 
instinct  is  universal,  and  all  enjoy  the  work  of  a  master  artist. 
Some  member  would  be  occupying  the  chair  temporarily.  The 
House  would  be  in  confusion,  and  many  members  shouting  at  the 
same  time  for  recognition  would  stop  business.  Angry  alterca- 
tions would  be  going  on  in  the  aisles,  and  in  front  of  the  desk. 
The  chairman  would  pound  with  his  gavel,  and  threaten  to  hand 
the  more  obstreperous  members  into  the  custody  of  the  Sergeant- 
at-Arms,  only  to  be  either  unnoticed  or  laughed  at.  Suddenly 
would  sound  through  the  Chamber  a  sharp  rap,  succeeded  by 
another  and  more  emphatic  one.  Silence  would  instantly  follow. 
The  Speaker  would  peremptorily  order  that  members  take  their 
seats,  then  instantly  utilizing  the  breathless  silence,  he  would 
either  end  the  wrangle  by  a  decision  which  no  one  dared  question, 
or  recognize  the  member  whom  he  knew  could  hold  the  floor, 
or  direct  the  Clerk  to  proceed  with  the  regular  order.  The  trans- 
formation from  riot  to  business  was  because  the  leader  had 
resumed  the  chair,  and  the  House  bowed  submissive  to  its  master. 
No  one  but  he,  at  least  at  Albany,  has  ever  been  able  to  make  the 
gavel  talk.  He  won  his  greatest  triumphs  in  the  closing  days  of 
the  session.  This  is  always  a  critical  period  for  the  Speaker,  and 
a  time  full  of  peril  to  the  State,  and  the  reputation  of  the  Legis- 
lature. Party  bills  have  been  kept  behind  to  avoid  the  scrutiny 
of  the  opposition,  and  bad  bills  held  in  reserve,  in  the  hope  of 
passing  them  during  the  confusion  of  the  last  hours.  The  lobby 
is  alert  and  audacious  and  the  speculators  in  legislation  both  inside 
and  outside  the  Legislature,  are  exhausting  the  resources  of  cun- 


314  ORATIONS  AND  MEMORIAL  ADDRESSES 

ning,  and  testing  the  elasticity  of  the  rules  to  pass  their  bills,  their 
resolutions  and  their  schemes.  It  is  the  work  of  the  week  of 
adjournment  which  has  at  times  done  incalculable  injury  to  the 
Commonwealth,  and  rendered  some  sessions  infamous.  Here  is 
the  Speaker's  opportunity  and  his  danger.  He  will  either  guide  the 
House,  or  the  House  will  ride  rough  shod  over  him.  General  Hu- 
sted  was  thoroughly  familiar  with  the  history  and  needs  of  the 
State.  He  made  himself  acquainted  with  the  bills  which  were  pend- 
ing, both  in  Senate  and  Assembly.  He  knew  the  inside  of  all  the 
conspiracies  and  combinations,  and  through  the  veneer  of  alleged 
public  interests  saw  the  strike,  and  behind  the  mask  of  a  fraudu- 
lent reformer,  the  striker.  Business  would  proceed  with  the 
rapidity  of  lightning,  and  the  dazed  members  be  either  frantic  or 
paralyzed  in  the  whirl  of  motions,  speeches,  reports  and  roll  calls. 
There  was  in  that  maddened  throng  one  cool,  supreme,  controlling 
mind.  With  a  skill,  which  was  like  necromancy,  and  a  daring 
which  silenced  dissent,  he  sifted  the  mass  pouring  from  the  hopper 
of  committees,  and  sub-committees,  and  dropped  the  bad  out  of 
its  order,  and  sent  the  good  through. 

The  period  from  1869,  when  General  Husted  was  first  elected 
to  the  Legislature,  and  including  1892  when  he  died,  has  been 
most  eventful  in  the  history  of  the  Nation  and  of  our  State. 
It  runs  from  Grant's  first  to  Cleveland's  second  election,  and  from 
Hoffman  to  Flower.  It  is  fruitful  of  popular  revulsions,  and 
revivals  of  prosperity.  It  is  rich  in  materials  for  the  historian, 
the  political  economist,  and  the  political  philosopher.  It  has  been 
singularly  full  of,  and  remarkably  fatal  to  great  men,  and  power- 
ful organizations.  The  re-election  of  General  Grant,  and  the 
tragedy  which  clouded  the  mighty  brain,  and  ended  the  eventful 
life  of  Horace  Greeley;  the  threatening  clouds  of  revolution 
which  hovered  over  the  claims  of  Samuel  J.  Tilden,  and  their 
dispersion  by  the  inauguration  of  Rutherford  B.  Hayes;  the 
political  revolution  against  the  organization  which  ended  in  the 
nomination  of  Garfield,  and  the  loss  of  its  fruits  by  his  assassi- 
nation; the  dynamic  and  romantic  events  which  made  Cleveland 
President,  and  the  receding  tide  which  carried  Harrison  into  the 
White  House,  and  the  electoral  results  which  after  thirty-two 
years,  have  changed  the  politics  and  policy  of  the  National  Gov- 
ernment by  Mr.  Cleveland's  second  election,  with  the  Senate  and 
House  of  Representatives  behind  him;  these,  and  the  great  finan- 


MEMORIAL  OF  GENERAL  HUSTED  315 

cial  and  industrial  measures  which  have  had  such  potent  influence 
upon  the  welfare  of  our  country,  are  the  national  milestones  of 
these  wonderful  years. 

The  rapid  rise  and  the  rough  destruction  of  the  forces  which 
made  Hoffman  Governor ;  the  patriotic  combination  which  gave  a 
hundred  thousand  majority  to  General  Dix;  the  rising  tide 
against  corruption  in  the  State  and  City  of  New  York,  which 
carried  Tilden  to  the  executive  chair;  the  easy  succession  of 
Lucius  Robinson,  and  the  reclamation  of  the  State  by  Alonzo  B. 
Cornell ;  the  protest  against  federal  and  machine  dictation  which 
gave  Cleveland  nearly  two  hundred  thousand  majority,  and  the 
more  recent  contests  which  ended  in  the  elections  of  Hill  and 
Flower;  and  the  struggles  and  their  issues  which  are  fruitful  of 
bitter  controversy  for  a  generation  to  come,  form  the  most  varied, 
eventful,  and  interesting  chapter  in  the  history  of  our  Common- 
wealth. 

It  will  ever  remain  the  unique  distinction  of  General  Husted 
that,  though  subject  to  the  ordeal  of  an  annual  election,  he  held 
place  and  power  during  this 

"Wreck  of  matter  and  crush  of  Worlds." 

As  a  Legislator,  he  favored  all  political,  moral,  and  social 
reforms.  On  such  questions  he  rose  above  party  considerations. 
He  fearlessly  advocated  the  suffrage  for  women.  He  was  the 
most  efficient  friend  of  the  Union  soldier.  His  best  efforts,  and 
most  effective  speeches,  were  for  high  license,  or  other  wise  regu- 
lations of  the  liquor  traffic,  for  the  protection  of  the  American 
Sunday,  for  religious  toleration  in  legislation,  and  for  better  and 
more  humane  care  of  the  afflicted  and  unfortunate  who  are  the 
wards  of  the  State. 

Through  all  his  varied  career  he  cared  nothing  for  yesterday, 
did  his  best  for  to-day,  and  was  confident  of  to-morrow.  The 
rainbow  of  hope  always  spanned  his  sky.  The  elasticity  of  his 
temperament  was  the  marvel  of  those  who  were  intimate  with 
him.  He  knew  defeat,  but  had  no  comprehension  of  despair. 
He  saw  in  misfortunes  which  others  regarded  as  calamities,  a 
providential  interposition  that  he  might  reap  richer  rewards  in 
some  other  direction.  Faith,  hope  and  charity  were  the  main- 
springs of  his  thoughts  and  actions.  He  set  a  very  high  value 
upon  political  honors,  and  had  a  low  estimate  of  wealth.     Con- 


316  ORATIONS  AND  MEMORIAL  ADDRESSES 

versations  which  are  so  frequent  in  all  circles  and  at  most  gather- 
ings, concerning  schemes  for  making  fortunes,  or  the  fabulous 
success  of  lucky  individuals,  would  neither  interest  nor  detain 
him ;  but  he  would  travel  a  thousand  miles  on  an  hour's  notice  to 
perform  a  public  duty,  or  attend  an  important  meeting  of  political 
leaders.  He  knew  little  about  Wall  Street  or  the  combinations 
which,  if  successful,  accumulate  sudden  wealth;  but  he  loved  to 
talk  with  farmers  about  their  affairs,  and  with  workingmen  about 
their  interests.  If  some  omnipotent  power  had  offered  him  the 
choice  between  being  the  richest  man  in  the  world  or  Governor 
of  the  State  of  New  York — with  a  certainty  of  having  a  narrow 
income  for  the  rest  of  his  life  after  retiring  from  office — he  would 
unhesitatingly  have  chosen  the  governorship.  He  believed  in 
himself  and  his  surroundings.  He  felt  that  others  had  environ- 
ments covered  by  the  same  general  nomenclature,  but  that  no  one 
ever  lived  who  possessed  so  gifted  and  good  a  wife,  such  dutiful 
and  promising  children,  such  worthy  and  devoted  friends,  and 
moved  amidst  such  happy  and  satisfactory  conditions.  He  never 
did  an  injury  to  any  man,  but  he  helped  hundreds  to  positions 
of  profit  and  trust.  Fully  one-quarter  of  his  time  was  devoted 
to  assisting  the  young  or  the  unfortunate,  and  his  name  is  heard 
in  the  grateful  prayers  of  numberless  households. 

Patriotic  public  servant  and  useful  citizen,  faithful  friend  and 
charming  companion,  the  State  which  honored  him,  and  which  he 
honored,  has  enrolled  him  on  the  list  of  her  distinguished  sons,  and 
we,  the  Governor,  the  State  officers,  the  members  of  Senate  and 
Assembly,  and  people  in  private  station,  who  knew  and  loved  him, 
will  ever  cherish  his  memory,  feeling  that  our  lives  are  better 
and  brighter  because  he  entered  into  them.  Dear  old  friend,  hail 
and  farewell ! 


MEMORIAL  OF  AMOS  J.  CUMMINGS 


ADDRESS  ON  RESOLUTIONS  IN  MEMORY  OF  REPRESENTATIVE  AMOS 
J.  CUMMINGS/  OF  NEW 
ATE,  FEBRUARY  1 4,  I903 


J.  CUMMINGS/  OF  NEW  YORK,  IN  THE  UNITED  STATES  SEN- 


Mr.  President  :  There  are  many  of  both  parties  who  knew 
Amos  J.  Cummings  and  loved  him  who  would  have  joined  in  this 
tribute  had  not  the  lateness  of  the  session  and  the  pressure  of 
business  made  it  impossible  for  them  to  secure  the  time  to  do  so ; 
but  I  could  not  let  this  session  adjourn  without  having  entered  in 
imperishable  memorial  upon  the  Journal  of  the  Senate  a  minute 
of  respect  for  one  of  the  best  men  who  ever  served  in  the  House 
of  Representatives — a  man  of  singular  career  and  of  most  varied 
experiences,  one  of  those  original  geniuses  who  seldom  make  a 
success,  and  therefore  the  success  of  one  of  them  is  all  the  more 
remarkable  and  commendable. 

There  are  very  few  Americans  who  never,  at  any  period  in 
their  lives,  had  a  desire  to  accumulate  a  fortune,  but  Amos  J. 
Cummings  was  one  of  them.  He  seemed  to  be,  during  all  his 
active  career,  a  child  of  impulse  and  of  circumstance.  He  acted 
many  parts,  but  such  was  his  genius,  his  power  of  concentration, 
and  his  ability,  that  in  each  part  he  forged  to  the  front  and  made 
himself  conspicuous.  A  brief  review  of  what  he  did  will  exhibit 
these  peculiarities. 

His  father  and  his  grandfather  were  both  clergymen.  He 
was  brought  up  and  had  the  training  which  comes  in  the  home 
of  a  village  pastor,  and  yet  so  restless  was  his  spirit  that  it  could 
not  brook  the  restraints  of  home  or  of  school  and  he  became  an 
apprentice  in  the  composing  room  of  a  newspaper. 

As  soon  as  he  had  learned  his  trade  the  roving  spirit  would 
no  longer  let  him  remain  at  home,  and  it  was  one  of  the  recollec- 
tions of  his  life  that  he  had  set  type  in  every  State  in  the  Union. 
This  gave  him,  long  before  he  came  of  age,  a  wonderful  knowl- 
edge of  the  country  and  a  remarkable  acquaintance  with  the 
people  of  the  different  States  of  the  Republic. 

^Amos  J.   Cummings   (1841-1902),   journalist,   was  a  Member  of  Congress  from  New 
York  districts  in   1887-1902.     In  politics  he  was  a  Democrat. — Ed. 

317 


318  ORATIONS  AND  MEMORIAL  ADDRESSES 

Happening  to  be  at  Mobile  when  General  Walker  started  upon 
his  expedition  for  the  conquest  of  Nicaragua,  this  restless  spirit 
was  at  once  captured  by  the  adventurer  and  the  adventure.  We 
shall  never  know  whether  Walker  was  a  buccaneer,  a  pirate,  a 
patriot,  or  what.  We  only  know  he  started  with  sixty-one  men 
to  capture  the  friendly  Republic  of  Nicaragua. 

It  is  one  of  the  evidences  of  the  enormous  advance  of  this 
country  in  a  recognition  of  international  rights  and  of  how  far 
an  American  citizen  can  go  in  violation  of  those  rights  that  the 
expedition  of  Walker,  widely  advertised,  the  recruiting  known 
at  Washington  and  everywhere  else,  was  permitted  to  start  for 
the  purpose  of  making  an  assault  upon  the  integrity  and  inde- 
pendence of  a  friendly  power.  That  could  not  happen  to-day 
under  any  conditions.  It  would  be  suppressed  at  once.  The  ex- 
pedition ended,  of  course,  at  last  in  disaster.  But  in  it  were  a 
multitude  of  extraordinary  experiences  which  would  form  a 
romance  if  Amos  Cummings  had  ever  had  the  time  to  write  them. 

When  he  came  back  to  New  York  he  entered  the  composing 
room  of  the  New  York  Tribune.  In  a  short  time  he  had  attracted 
the  personal  attention  of  Horace  Greeley,  who  advanced  him  to  a 
position  on  the  editorial  staff. 

Then  he  fell  again  into  the  editorial  line  as  the  managing 
editor  of  the  New  York  Sun,  under  Charles  A.  Dana.  When  the 
mob  threatened  to  wreck  the  Tribune  building  in  the  draft  riots 
of  1863,  it  would  have  done  so  had  it  not  been  for  Cummings. 
The  remarkable  facility  of  this  man  to  adapt  himself  to  all  circum- 
stances captured  and  dispersed  that  crowd  of  raving  lunatics. 

Then  he  joined  the  Army  during  the  Civil  War  as  a  soldier 
in  a  New  Jersey  regiment.  At  the  battle  of  Chancellorsville, 
when  his  battery  had  been  taken  and  the  regiment  was  on  the  run, 
he  seized  from  the  dying  color  bearer  the  colors,  and  rushing 
back  with  them  alone  shamed  the  regiment,  so  that  they  followed 
him  and  recaptured  the  battery,  for  which  he  received  the  thanks 
of  Congress  and  a  medal,  which  was  the  ornament  that  he  loved 
best  of  all  during  the  whole  of  his  life. 

He  became  not  only  facile  with  the  pen,  but  developed  as  a 
speaker  and  turned  to  the  platform ;  his  party  wanted  him  in  its 
campaigns ;  the  dinner  tables  of  the  metropolis  found  that  he  was 
a  charming  addition  to  the  after-dinner  speaking. 

Here  you  have  this  varied  career.     He  entered  Congress ;  he 


MEMORIAL  OF  AMOS  J.  CUMMINGS  319 

was  there  for  fifteen  years,  and  he  so  impressed  himself  upon  his 
associates  that  he  received  the  extraordinary  honor,  very  few 
times  granted,  of  being  awarded  a  public  funeral  on  the  floor  of 
the  House. 

It  was  my  good  fortune  to  know  Cummings  from  his  early 
beginnings  down  to  the  day  of  his  death.  I  often  wonder  what 
are  the  influences  and  environments  that  most  make  up  a  charac- 
ter or  shape  a  career.  Cummings  never  had  any  settled  purpose 
for  any  career,  but  he  just  dropped  into  his  ideal  of  the  hour  and 
then  marched  on  with  it  and  its  adherents  so  long  as  he  felt  that 
his  line  of  duty  was  just  there. 

The  wonder  is  that  this  roving  young  printer,  under  sixteen 
years  of  age,  falling  into  all  sorts  of  associations  everywhere,  this 
youth  of  seventeen,  a  comrade  with  those  wild  adventurers  of 
every  nationality  who  were  without  character,  without  any  regard 
for  law,  international  or  national,  or  morality,  or  anything  else,  as 
were  his  associates  in  the  Walker  expedition ;  going  through  the 
civil  war  while  still  so  young — that  in  all  of  these  associations  and 
all  of  these  temptations  the  real  fiber  of  manhood,  which  was  the 
heredity  of  two  generations  of  clergymen,  left  him  at  the  end 
untouched  by  any  of  the  temptations  which  must  have  surrounded 
a  young  man  under  such  circumstances. 

The  character  and  career  of  Amos  J.  Cummings  were  not 
formed  in  the  parsonage,  nor  in  the  composing  room,  nor  in  the 
associations  with  his  friends,  the  printers,  nor  with  the  adven- 
turers in  Nicaragua,  nor  with  his  comrades  in  the  Army.  They 
were  built  by  the  overmastering  influence  of  two  men  of  extra- 
ordinary genius,  whom  he  worshiped — one  Horace  Greeley,  the 
other  Charles  A.  Dana. 

No  proper  appreciation  of  the  life  and  services,  of  the  ability 
and  character  of  Horace  Greeley  has  ever  been  written.  There 
was  a  time,  and  fortunately  for  Mr.  Cummings  he  was  then  on 
the  Tribune  staff  and  learning  from  that  great  master,  when  there 
came  every  day  from  the  Tribune  office  a  newspaper  with  edito- 
rials written  by  that  pen  which  influenced  the  judgment  of  mil- 
lions, which  controlled  the  action  of  parties,  and  dominated  the 
legislation  of  the  country. 

The  most  guileless  man  I  ever  knew,  the  most  simple,  the  most 
credulous,  the  most  unworldly,  and  yet  with  a  pen  in  his  hand 
the  strongest  and  wisest,  was  Horace  Greeley.     One  can  imagine 


320  ORATIONS  AND  MEMORIAL  ADDRESSES 

the  influence  of  such  a  character  upon  such  an  impressionable 
youth  and  one  of  such  a  make-up  as  Amos  J.  Cummings. 

I  have  seen  many  a  deathbed  in  my  life;  I  have  witnessed  life 
go  out  under  conditions  that  were  sad  or  sweet,  hopeful  or  de- 
spairing. I  never  but  once  saw  a  man  die  of  a  broken  heart,  and 
never  do  I  wish  to  see  such  a  tragedy  again. 

I  made  a  speech  with  Mr.  Greeley  in  his  presidential  campaign, 
just  before  its  close.  We  spoke  from  the  same  platform,  and 
both  of  us  knew  that  he  was  to  be  beaten.  We  returned  to  his 
home,  and  he  was  jeered  on  the  train  and  at  the  depot  when  we 
arrived.  I  was  with  him  one  day  shortly  before  his  death.  We 
went  into  his  study.  It  was  littered  with  those  famous  caricatures 
of  Nast,  representing  him  as  the  embodiment  of  all  that  was  evil 
or  vile  in  expression  or  practice  in  life. 

Mr.  Greeley  glanced  them  over,  and  then  he  said :  "My  life  is  a 
failure;  I  never  have  sought  to  accumulate  a  fortune;  I  never 
have  cared  for  fame ;  but  I  did  want  to  leave  a  monument  of  what 
I  had  done  for  my  fellow-men,  in  lifting  them  up,  in  doing  away 
with  the  curse  of  slavery  and  the  curse  of  rum;  but  here  I  am  so 
caricatured  and  misrepresented  to  my  countrymen  that  the  slave 
will  always  look  upon  me  as  having  been  one  of  his  owners,  and 
reform  will  believe  me  a  fraud."  Then,  his  head  falling  upon  his 
desk,  he  burst  into  uncontrollable  sobs.  The  brain  that  had  done 
such  splendid  work  snapped.  He  was  soon  after  taken  to  an 
asylum,  where  he  died.  His  heart  literally  broke  at  the  moment 
when  he  bowed  his  head  upon  his  desk. 

Another  man  who  subsequently  had  influence  on  the  life  and 
in  molding  the  work  and  character  of  Amos  J.  Cummings  was 
Charles  A.  Dana.  Mr.  Dana  was  of  an  entirely  different  type 
from  Horace  Greeley,  a  man  of  large  and  broad  culture,  of  wide 
reading  and  extensive  travel,  of  experience  in  literature  and  in 
the  world — a  man  of  the  world,  familiar  with  the  public  men  of 
all  nations  and  of  the  great  writers  of  all  countries  and  of  all 
times — not  only  an  editor,  but  himself  a  writer  of  eminence  in 
other  walks  of  literature.  He  possessed  the  quality  beyond  my 
newspaper  man  I  have  ever  known  of  compressing  in  a  sentence 
an  article  which  filled  a  column;  of  putting  in  one  paragraph  a 
thought  which,  expanded  by  others,  would  have  been  dissipated 
by  its  length;  but  in  a  paragraph  it  became  the  quotable  truth 


MEMORIAL  OF  AMOS  J.  CUMMINGS  321 

for  every  newspaper  in  the  country,  and  was  often  reproduced  as 
a  condensed  expression  in  the  platform  of  a  party. 

Through  the  whole  of  Amos  J.  Cummings'  subsequent  career 
we  see  the  influence  of  these  two  great  men,  about  whom  he  was 
always  talking  and  who  were  his  idols.  The  tremendous,  rushing, 
resistless,  Niagara  forces  of  Horace  Greeley  were  in  the  impulses 
which  moved  him ;  but  at  the  same  time  in  the  articles  that  came 
from  his  pen  you  could  see  the  results  of  the  criticism  and  teach- 
ing which  he  received  while  he  was  the  editor  of  the  Sun  from 
his  master,  Charles  A.  Dana. 

Mr.  Cummings  became  a  member  of  the  House  of  Represen- 
tatives at  that  moment  when  there  seemed  to  have  come  like  an 
inspiration,  and  almost  in  an  hour,  the  idea  to  the  people  of  the 
United  States  and  to  Congress  that  we  must  have  a  powerful 
Navy.  It  had  been  seen  by  American  statesmen  for  a  generation 
that  such  a  Navy  must  be  built,  but  the  spirit  of  economy  had 
resisted  it  always  as  unnecessary  because  of  the  strength  of  our 
isolation.  But  the  first  year  that  Cummings  was  in  Congress  this 
idea  suddenly  and  almost  as  an  electric  spark  permeated  the  whole 
Republic.  It  caught  at  once  upon  a  mind  which  had  been  trained 
and  a  life  which  had  been  led  as  had  that  of  our  friend.  He  se- 
cured a  position  upon  the  Naval  Committee.  He  was  during  most 
of  his  career  in  the  party  of  the  opposition,  and  yet  the  Navy,  as 
it  is  to-day,  owes  much  to  the  consistent,  persistent,  able,  and 
patriotic  support  of  this  Representative  from  New  York. 

He  had  one  other  aim,  one  other  absorption,  and  that  was  with 
him  always.  He  became  a  member  early  in  life  of  the  Typograph- 
ical Union.  I  have  been,  from  my  occupation  and  associations 
necessarily  a  student  of  and  brought  into  intimate  contact  with 
labor  organizations.  One  of  the  best  labor  organizations  in  the 
world,  full  of  beneficence,  commanding  the  respect  of  everybody, 
and  doing  infinite  good  for  its  own  members,  is  the  one  with 
which  I  was  most  closely  brought  in  contact  for  many  years  as 
president  of  the  New  York  Central  Railway  Company — the 
Brotherhood  of  Locomotive  Engineers.  Alongside  of  them  is  the 
Typographical  Union,  of  whom  I  have  had  much  knowledge, 
though  not  business  relations. 

As  a  member,  a  lecturer,  and  an  associate  in  this  body,  Cum- 
mings became  familiar  with  the  ideas  underlying  labor  unions, 
with  the  best  purposes  which  they  had,  and  with  that  which  was 
Vol.  1—21 


322  ORATIONS  AND  MEMORIAL  ADDRESSES 

best  which  could  be  accomplished  by  voluntary  efforts,  or  which 
should  be  enacted  into  legislation.  Much  of  the  legislation  on 
the  statute  books  of  the  United  States  for  the  last  fifteen  years  in 
behalf  of  labor  owes  its  position  there  to  the  intelligent  efforts  of 
this  labor  man  and  exponent,  in  its  best  and  highest  sense,  of 
labor. 

Mr.  Cummings  cultivated  the  faculty — which  very  few  hard- 
working men  possess — of  always  having  plenty  of  time  for  any- 
thing. Plenty  of  time  for  play,  for  excursions,  for  social  enjoy- 
ment with  those  he  loved  and  who  loved  him,  plenty  of  time  to 
appear  at  the  banquet  hall  where  the  occasion  was  patriotic  or 
purely  social,  or  for  the  advancement  of  some  special  purpose, 
and  plenty  of  time  to  deliver  an  address,  which  was  in  the  next 
day's  paper  one  of  the  features  of  the  evening.  He  could  do 
beyond  most  men  I  have  ever  met  that  most  difficult  task  of 
amusing  a  crowd  which  is  assembled  under  such  conditions  late 
in  the  evening,  and  at  the  same  time  through  the  fun,  joke,  and 
story  of  weaving  a  thread  of  pregnant  truths  which  left  an  im- 
press which  did  not  die  with  the  flowers  of  the  feast. 

In  standing  beside  the  open  grave  of  a  friend  one  thought 
often  occurs  to  me  in  later  years,  and  that  is :  What  does  the  world 
owe  this  man  and  how  much  of  the  debt  has  he  collected  ?  The 
world  owes  to  every  man  living,  providing  he  has  the  industry 
and  determination  to  collect  it.  The  world  owes  to  every  man 
more  pleasure  than  pain;  more  good  than  bad;  more  gain  than 
loss;  more  happiness  than  sorrow;  more  success  than  failure; 
more  love  than  hate ;  more  friends  than  enemies ;  but  it  rests  with 
the  man  himself  whether  he  collects  that  debt,  for  the  world  holds 
fast  to  the  good  things  which  it  possesses  and  lets  free  the  bad ; 
and  it  is  only  by  labor  and  energy,  only  by  determination  and 
character  that  the  debt  which  the  world  owes  to  every  one  is 
collected.  But  as  I  stood  beside  the  bier  of  my  old  friend,  Amos 
J.  Cummings,  as  I  looked  over  his  life  as  a  printer,  an  editor,  an 
author,  a  soldier,  and  a  statesman,  and  then  contemplated  his 
inner  life  in  his  home  and  among  his  friends,  I  felt  that  in  his 
sixty-one  years  of  varied  activities  he  had  collected  the  debt 
which  the  world  owed  him;  that  he  had  to  his  account  a  large 
credit  of  fame,  of  good  wishes,  and  of  loving  regrets,  and  that  he 
found  a  large  credit  to  his  account  in  the  great  book  of  life  when 
he  joined  the  majority. 


MEMORIAL  OF  JOHN  H.   KETCHAM 


ADDRESS  ON  RESOLUTIONS  IN  MEMORY  OF  REPRESENTATIVE  JOHN 
H.  KETCHAM,  OF  NEW  YORK,  IN  THE  UNITED  STATES  SENATE, 
MARCH  2,  I907. 

Mr.  President  :  Those  of  us  who  have  been  here  for  many 
years  have  experienced  during  this  Congress  and  others  how  fre- 
quently death  comes  where  there  are  90  Senators  and  386  Mem- 
bers of  the  House.  As  a  rule,  the  colleague  who  has  departed 
did  not  have  the  qualities  of  mind  or  distinction  in  public  life 
which  raised  him  sufficiently  above  the  average  of  his  fellows  for 
him  to  be  distinguished  beyond  them  all.  Now  and  then  there  is 
a  rare  character  who  does  possess  these  qualities  and  has  achieved 
this  unique  success. 

I  know  of  no  one  in  my  long  acquaintance  with  public  men, 
covering  now  more  than  half  a  century,  who  without  being  spec- 
tacular, without  calling  to  himself  the  attention  of  the  whole  coun- 
try, yet  had  such  a  remarkable  career  as  Gen.  John  H.  Ketcham. 
He  lived  in  the  district  adjoining  the  one  in  which  I  was  born  and 
passed  most  of  my  life,  and  during  the  whole  of  his  public  career 
he  was  my  intimate  friend.  I  knew  him  in  his  private,  business, 
and  political  life.  He  had  the  distinction  of  being  for  thirty-four 
years  a  Member  of  the  House  of  Representatives,  a  period  longer 
than  any  other  man  has  served  since  the  formation  of  the  Repub- 
lic, and  in  the  changing  conditions,  increased  population,  and 
greater  competition  of  our  times  and  those  which  will  succeed,  I 
doubt  if  that  record  will  ever  be  equaled,  and  I  think  he  will 
always  stand  as  the  man  who  spent  more  years  in  the  public 
service  in  the  popular  branch  of  our  Government  than  any  other 
one  who  ever  served  there. 

His  career  presents  a  beautiful  example  of  American  life. 
He  was  born  in  modest  circumstances.  He  became  a  farmer  in 
early  life,  upon  a  moderate  patrimony,  and  proceeded  at  once, 
with  the  qualities  which  made  his  success,  to  impress  himself  upon 
his  community.  The  advantages  of  education  to  him  were  only 
those  of  the  common  school  and  the  local  academy,  but  they 

323 


324  ORATIONS  AND  MEMORIAL  ADDRESSES 

sufficed  to  overcome  all  obstacles  and  to  enable  him  to  surpass  all 
his  contemporaries. 

He  was  a  member  of  the  local  legislature  of  his  county  as  a 
supervisor  from  his  town  the  year  he  became  of  age.  Two  years 
afterwards  he  became  a  member  of  the  lower  house  of  the  Legis- 
lature of  the  State  of  New  York,  and  at  twenty-five  he  was  a 
State  Senator.     He  was  reelected,  and  then  came  the  Civil  War. 

When  the  volunteer  regiments  were  raised  in  our  State  three 
citizens  in  each  Congressional  district  were  appointed  to  take 
charge  of  recruiting.  In  his  Congressional  district  they  were 
Benson  J.  Lossing,  the  distinguished  historian;  Judge  Emmett, 
one  of  the  most  eminent  members  of  our  Supreme  Court,  and 
this  young  Senator.  The  work  of  this  recruiting  service  de- 
volved upon  this  young  man,  who  had  already  become  a  familiar 
figure  upon  every  farm  in  every  household  in  the  district.  In 
three  weeks  the  One  Hundred  and  Fiftieth  New  York  was  raised. 
They  were  men  of  his  own  age,  of  his  own  period,  his  intimate 
friends,  his  political  allies  and  associates,  and  their  demand  was 
that  he  should  go  with  them  as  their  leader  to  the  front,  and  they 
elected  him  their  colonel. 

He  was  a  young  married  man  with  a  little  family — very 
young — yet  he  did  not  hesitate  a  moment.  He  assumed  the  re- 
sponsibility of  command  of  the  regiment — a  farmer's  boy  who 
knew  nothing  whatever  of  military  tactics  and  who  had  never 
been  connected  with  a  military  organization.  But  with  the  same 
persistent  energy  and  grasp  of  things  with  which  he  had  to  do  that 
made  his  success,  he  drew  about  him  the  best  military  talent 
available  and  studied  night  and  day,  and  used  the  same  efforts 
with  his  regiment,  until  when  it  came  to  the  front  it  was  a  disci- 
plined organization  with  a  competent  leader. 

During  all  the  years  of  the  Civil  War  it  was  the  characteristic 
of  the  One  Hundred  and  Fiftieth  New  York  that  it  was  equal 
to  any  duty  it  might  be  called  upon  to  perform.  It  was  in  all 
the  campaigns  of  the  Army  of  the  Potomac  and  afterwards  in 
those  of  the  Army  of  the  West,  and  as  in  different  battles  its 
ranks  were  depleted  they  were  recruited  again  from  these  same 
farmer  boys  of  the  district  which  its  colonel  had  represented  in  the 
Legislature. 

He  was  wounded  at  Gettysburg,  his  life  despaired  of,  and 


MEMORIAL  OF  JOHN  H.  KETCHAM  325 

from  that  wound  he  suffered  during  his  life.  But  when  he  could 
once  more  move,  though  he  had  ample  excuse  to  retire,  he  was 
with  Sherman,  at  the  head  of  the  One  Hundred  and  Fiftieth  New 
York,  marching  through  Georgia  to  the  sea. 

In  1865  tne  boys,  writing  home  from  the  regiment  of  their 
colonel,  who  was  always  caring  for  their  comfort  regardless  of 
his  own,  whether  it  was  in  camp  or  on  the  battlefield  or  in  the 
hospital,  created  a  sentiment  in  the  district  that  he  should  repre- 
sent them  in  Congress,  and  he  was  practically  unanimously 
elected.  For  four  terms  he  was  in  the  lower  House,  covering 
eight  years. 

Then  came  one  of  the  most  remarkable  contests  which  has 
ever  occurred  in  our  country.  It  was  in  1872.  The  candidacy 
of  Horace  Greeley  had  demoralized  for  the  time  the  Republican 
Party,  which  had  been  brought  up  on  the  New  York  Tribune,  and 
demoralized  the  Democratic  Party  which  had  nominated  its  most 
distinguished,  able  and  bitter  opponent  as  its  candidate  for 
President.  The  Democratic  Party  then  undertook  to  defeat 
Colonel,  Brigadier-general,  Major-general,  and  Congressman 
Ketcham.  They  selected  a  millionaire  opponent,  and  the  contest 
developed  election  methods  to  an  extent  never  before  or  since 
known. 

In  those  days  we  had  no  civil-service  and  no  corrupt-practices 
acts.  In  those  days  when  the  courts  met  and  the  judge  charged 
the  grand  jury  of  the  statutory  clauses,  among  which  was  bribery 
at  the  polls,  it  received  no  other  attention  than  a  smile  in  the  court 
room.  In  this  contest,  which  attracted  the  attention  of  the  coun- 
try, and  especially  of  our  State,  General  Ketcham  was  defeated 
by  a  few  hundred  votes.  But  it  was  known  and  admitted  that 
the  contest  had  cost  the  successful  candidate  more  than  a  quarter 
of  a  million  dollars  and  when  the  grand  jury  met  again  and  the 
judge  solemnly  charged,  no  smile  was  seen  in  the  court  among 
the  grand  jury,  the  petit  jurymen,  the  litigants,  the  lawyers,  or 
the  witnesses,  because  all  knew  the  facts,  and  many  of  them  were 
disgracefully  connected  with  them. 

No  investigation  followed  and  no  action  was  taken,  and  no 
public  interest  in  the  matter  shown.  We  hear  much  in  praise  of 
the  good  old  times  and  regrets  that  they  can  not  return,  but  such 
a  canvass  and  election  would  be  impossible  now  in  our  State  or 
any  other. 


326  ORATIONS  AND  MEMORIAL  ADDRESSES 

General  Grant  knew  and  appreciated  General  Ketcham  as  a 
soldier,  and  came,  during  the  General's  eight  years  in  Congress, 
to  recognize  his  talents  for  affairs,  and  instantly  called  upon 
him  to  serve  the  Government  in  the  new  organization  of  the 
District  of  Columbia,  appointing  him  on  the  commission  with 
Governor  Dennison,  of  Ohio,  and  Henry  T.  Blow,  of  Missouri, 
two  eminent  executive  officers.  The  General  made  a  deep  and 
profound  study  of  the  capital  problem.  He  became  familiar  with 
the  plan  of  that  remarkable  genius,  L'Enfant,  who  was  selected 
by  General  Washington  to  lay  out  this  city,  then  a  city  of  magni- 
ficent distances,  so  well  described  by  that  phrase. 

During  his  three  years  as  Commissioner  he  energetically  ad- 
vanced the  plans  since  carried  out  and  expanded  which  have  made 
Washington  remarkable,  and  in  the  full  development  of  which 
this  city  will  become  the  most  beautiful  capital  in  the  world. 

But  after  three  years  without  its  old  Representative  his  district 
found  it  did  not  have  the  same  distinction  and  service  as  with 
General  Ketcham,  and  it  again  called  on  him  to  represent  its 
people  in  the  House  of  Representatives.  The  second  time  he  was 
a  Member  for  sixteen  years,  eight  times  consecutively  reelected, 
generally  without  any  opposition,  though  it  was  one  of  the  most 
doubtful  districts  in  our  State,  and  often  Democratic.  But  fre- 
quently he  would  be  unopposed  in  order  that  his  forceful  genius 
and  efforts  might  not  prevail  in  the  local  campaign. 

At  the  end  of  sixteen  years  his  health  failed,  and  he  retired 
for  three  years,  but  the  district  again  demanded  him.  It  would 
have  no  one  else.  He  was  unanimously  called  upon  and  remained 
in  Congress  for  eight  years  more,  until  his  death. 

One  of  the  most  pathetic  and  beautiful  tributes  which  can 
be  paid  to  a  man  was  that  which  crowned  his  life.  It  was  known 
that  he  was  in  desperate  health ;  it  was  known  that  he  was  para- 
lyzed ;  that  he  could  perform  little  or  no  service  for  his  district  or 
the  country,  and  yet  the  convention  of  his  party  unanimously 
nominated  him,  and  it  was  understood  that  there  would  be  no 
opposition ;  but  unhappily  he  died  ten  days  before  election. 

Mr.  President,  here  is  the  life  of  a  man  who  was  fifty-one 
years  in  the  public  service,  who  was  thirty-four  years  in  Congress, 
who  served  with  distinction  in  the  Legislature  of  his  State,  who 
won  approbation  as  a  Commissioner  of  this  capital  District  of 
the  country,  and  who  as  a  soldier  received  the  commendation  of 


MEMORIAL  OF  JOHN  H.  KETCHAM  327 

his  brigade  and  division  commanders  for  distinguished  services 
in  the  field,  and  who  left  the  Army  a  major-general. 

Now,  what  were  the  peculiarities,  what  were  the  character- 
istics, which  made  this  very  remarkable  career?  He  served  in 
Congress  under  the  leadership  of  Thaddeus  Stevens,  James  G. 
Blaine,  James  A.  Garfield,  William  McKinley,  David  B.  Hender- 
son, and  Joseph  G.  Cannon ;  and  while  the  Record  might  display 
little  of  what  he  did,  he  was  a  most  valuable  assistant  to  each  one 
of  them.  He  was  in  Congress  with  every  President  from  Lincoln 
to  Roosevelt,  and  while  occupying  but  little  space  in  the  public 
press  he  was  constantly  invited  to  the  White  House  for  his 
assistance  and  advice. 

It  was  known  that  while  orators  might  speak  and  leaders 
might  direct,  there  was  no  Member  of  Congress  in  Ketcham's 
time  who  could  accomplish  so  much  for  the  success  of  any  meas- 
ure or  the  defeat  of  any  bill  which  was  before  the  House.  If  he 
could  have  written  his  reminiscences  and  autobiography,  giving 
the  unwritten  story  of  party  measures  and  policies  and  the  secret 
of  success  and  of  failure  of  leaders  during  his  long  term,  what  a 
valuable  contribution  it  would  have  been  to  our  political  history ! 

In  New  York,  which  probably  more  than  any  other  State  in 
the  Union  has  been  for  a  century  in  both  parties  subject  to  domi- 
nant leadership,  he  was  always  a  stalwart.  He  was  in  office  when 
the  famous  partnership  of  Seward,  Weed,  and  Greeley  was 
dramatically  dissolved,  and  continued  during  Greeley's  temporary 
leadership  and  the  control  of  Thurlow  Weed.  He  was  in  office 
when  Conkling  and  Fenton  had  their  bitter  fight,  first  Fenton  in 
command  and  then  the  autocratic  domination  of  Conkling,  and 
so  on  down  to  the  time  of  his  death.  He  never  shifted  from  one 
side  to  the  other  as  leaders  changed.  His  own  side  might  be  in 
a  minority  in  the  State  organization,  but  his  hold  upon  his  own 
district,  from  the  affection  which  the  people  had  for  him  was 
such  that  the  State  organization  could  never  wrest  from  his  hands 
the  organization  of  his  Congressional  district. 

He  was  a  politician  of  the  old  school.  He  believed  in  ma- 
chines. He  believed  in  patronage.  He  believed  in  getting  all 
that  was  possible  of  positions  for  his  friends.  I  do  not  think  any 
man  who  lived  in  his  time,  or  any  twenty,  had  so  many  men  in 
office  as  General  Ketcham.  He  had  an  instinctive  knowledge 
when  there  was  a  vacancy  in  any  Department  of  the  Government, 


328  ORATIONS  AND  MEMORIAL  ADDRESSES 

and  he  had  a  man  ready  to  fill  it  and  generally  got  him  in.  The 
President  or  a  Cabinet  minister  or  the  bureau  head  knew  per- 
fectly well  when  General  Ketcham  came  in  that  the  desired  posi- 
tion had  to  be  surrendered  before  the  General  retired.  He  did 
not  confine  his  activities  to  political  appointments  in  taking  care 
of  his  friends.  There  was  scarcely  a  firm  or  corporation  in  the 
the  State  with  a  large  force  of  employees  which  was  not  subject 
to  his  activities.  The  New  York  Central  Railroad  had  the  Hud- 
son River  division  running  on  one  side  of  his  district  and  the 
Harlem  division  on  the  other,  and  during  the  period  of  nearly 
twenty  years  while  I  was  its  executive  officer  if  a  vacancy  oc- 
curred in  his  district  General  Ketcham  knew  it  before  I  did — 
before  it  was  reported  to  the  president — and  he  was  in  my  office 
with  a  candidate  for  the  place,  and  usually  secured  it. 

I  will  say  in  this  connection  that  his  selections  were  always 
men  fitted  for  the  duties.  There  was  no  distinction  with  him  as 
to  politics  in  securing  positions.  If  the  candidate  was  a  young 
man  whom  he  believed  deserving  or  a  middle-aged  man  with 
whom  fortune,  for  no  fault  of  his  own,  had  somehow  gone 
wrong,  he  would  do  for  him  what  he  could.  Fathers  were  suc- 
ceeded by  sons  grateful  to  this  old  general  who  had  either  given 
them  in  youth  a  lift  in  life  or  saved  the  family  in  hard  luck  from 
distress. 

He  had  utter  contempt  for  the  holier-than-thou  patriot.  He 
had  an  inexpressible  and  infinite  loathing  for  the  man  who  be- 
lieved that  he  was  lifted  as  he  tore  down  reputations. 

Now,  then,  what  constituted  his  enormous  success?  How 
did  he  remain  fifty-one  years  in  public  life?  How  did  he  rise  to 
be  a  major-general  in  the  hot  battles  of  the  Civil  War?  Why 
was  it  he  could  never  be  defeated,  except  in  that  one  extraordinary 
canvass  against  him,  in  his  own  district?  Why  was  he  as  fortu- 
nate in  business  as  in  politics  ?  Because  under  all  circumstances 
and  at  all  times  he  was  a  man  of  such  wise  judgment  and  good 
sense  that  he  knew  a  situation  before  other  people;  because  of 
tireless  industry,  which  was  spurred  to  greater  effort  by  failure 
and  often  won  victory  from  defeat. 

He  never  made  a  speech,  and  yet  he  was  more  successful  than 
great  orators.  He  never  wrote  a  magazine  article  or  a  contribu- 
tion for  the  newspapers,  and  yet  he  had  more  influence  with  the 


MEMORIAL  OF  JOHN  H.  KETCHAM  329 

public  opinion  of  his  district  than  all  the  orators  or  editors  or 
magazine  writers. 

Mr.  President,  this  farmer,  legislator,  Senator,  Congressman, 
soldier  had  ideals.  He  had  ideals  about  his  home,  and  it  was  a 
beautiful  one,  with  wife  and  children.  He  had  ideals  about  the 
public  opinion  of  his  district  than  all  the  orators  or  editors  or 
for  the  last  fifty  years  have  been  before  the  Congress  of  the 
United  States.  He  had  his  ideals  as  a  soldier,  and  he  met  the 
commendation  of  those  great  soldiers  whose  names  will  be  for- 
ever connected  with  the  most  glorious  part  of  the  history  of  our 
country.  He  had  ideals  of  public  life — that  he  should  be  true  to 
his  country,  his  friend,  and  his  own  manhood  and  independence. 

So  Gen.  John  H.  Ketcham  lived  and  died.  For  fifty  years 
he  was  in  the  open  and  before  the  public.  Important  investiga- 
tions were  held  while  he  was  upon  the  platform,  but  he  was  never 
brought  in.  Great  scandals  smirched  both  Houses  of  Congress 
while  he  was  in  office,  but  he  was  never  touched.  Continually 
on  the  platform  and  in  the  public  eye,  his  record  was  always 
honorable,  and  he  had  the  highest  consideration  of  his  associates, 
his  friends,  and  his  enemies. 

I  know  of  no  example  of  a  man  so  inconspicuous  and  yet 
so  great  which  furnishes  such  a  noble  lesson  of  the  possibilities  of 
American  citizenship  to  the  youth  of  our  countries  as  that  of  Gen. 
John  H.  Ketcham. 


Vol.  I-22 


MEMORIAL  OF  WILLIAM   H.   FLACK 


ADDRESS  ON  RESOLUTIONS  IN  MEMORY  OF  REPRESENTATIVE 
WILLIAM  H.  FLACK,  OF  NEW  YORK,  IN  THE  UNITED  STATES 
SENATE,  MARCH  2,  I907. 

Mr.  President  :  When  a  man  has  passed  his  limit  of  three 
score  and  ten,  and  four  score  is  near,  his  death  is  not  an  interrup- 
tion, but  the  sudden  checking  of  ultimate  possibilities.  We 
mourn  his  loss  as  we  have  that  of  General  Ketcham,  who 
died  at  seventy-four.  But  when  the  dread  event  comes  in 
the  early  forties  it  is  more  than  an  ordinary  calamity.  The  citi- 
zen who  is  in  his  meridian  and  has  accomplished  something  of 
success  is  a  valuable  asset  of  his  community  and  of  the  State. 
He  has  cleared  the  obstacles  and  difficulties  from  his  pathway,  his 
judgment  has  ripened,  experience  has  made  him  wise,  and  the 
course  before  him  is  clear. 

Mr.  William  Henry  Flack  commenced  the  struggle  early,  with 
no  advantages  other  than  those  afforded  by  the  common  school. 
He  made  his  fight  in  the  battle  with  the  world  in  the  community 
where  he  was  born.  At  forty-six,  when  he  died,  he  had  been  a 
success  in  business,  a  trustee  and  president  of  his  village,  chair- 
man of  his  party  committee  in  the  county,  and  twice  a  Member  of 
Congress  from  the  district  comprising  the  counties  of  St.  Law- 
rence, Franklin,  Essex,  and  Clinton.  In  the  usual  course  of 
events  he  should  have  possessed  thirty  years  more  for  service  to 
his  country  and  rewards  for  himself. 

The  difficulties  which  surround  a  country  boy  who  aspires  not 
only  to  business  success,  but  to  a  political  career,  are  greater  than 
those  that  meet  the  son  of  the  city.  This  is  peculiarly  the  case 
where  political  distinction  is  desired.  The  man  of  the  town  is 
absorbed  in  the  hot  competitions  of  his  vocation.  The  theater, 
the  club,  and  other  social  diversions  claim  his  spare  time.  It  is 
only  in  periods  of  excitement  about  public  questions  that  his  atten- 
tion is  diverted  to  political  matters.  Public  opinion  in  great 
cities  is  dormant  unless  aroused  by  some  crisis  in  the  affairs  of  the 
municipality,  the  State,  or  the  nation.     After  a  period  of  feverish 

330 


MEMORIAL  OF  WILLIAM  H.  FLACK  331 

and  passionate  activity  the  people  settle  down  again  to  the  normal 
conditions  with  less  interest  in  public  affairs  than  in  those  which 
pertain  immediately  to  their  welfare.  In  the  city  there  is  no 
neighborhood.  The  citizen  rarely  knows  who  lives  on  his  street 
or  who  are  the  occupants  of  the  other  apartments  in  his  apartment 
house.  Many  a  man  who  has  been  distinguished  and  looked  up 
to  by  his  neighbors  in  the  country,  who  has  been  a  local  oracle 
and  in  a  measure  the  pride  of  the  people,  has  come  to  the  metropo- 
lis for  a  larger  field  for  his  talents  and  activities.  I  have  had  the 
ex-Judge  and  the  ex-Senator  or  ex-Congressman  say  to  me:  "I 
do  not  know  who  lives  on  either  side  of  me  or  across  the  way.  I 
am  a  stranger  in  the  elevator  to  those  who  are  going  to  their 
offices  in  the  vast  building.  I  am  jostled  in  the  streets  and 
crowded  on  the  cars.  Few  call  upon  my  family,  and  we  might 
almost  as  well  be  in  the  Desert  of  Sahara.  I  miss  the  attention 
and  recognition  to  which  I  have  been  accustomed,  and  that  most 
delightful  flattery  in  the  world,  the  respect  and  admiration  of 
men,  women,  and  children,  which  I  had  at  home,  and  we  are 
going  back.  No  pecuniary  rewards  compensate  for  the  loss  of 
that  human  contact  and  brotherly  feeling  which  constitute  the 
larger  part  of  the  pleasures  of  life."  Under  these  conditions  the 
organization  more  than  the  individual  governs  his  career,  unless 
he  can  control  the  organization. 

In  the  country,  however,  the  circle  of  the  citizen  enlarges 
with  his  activities  and  he  becomes  socially  and  politically  well 
known,  first  in  the  town,  then  the  county,  and  afterwards  the 
district ;  but  he  must  be  somebody  and  do  something  which  raises 
him  above  the  average  in  order  to  receive  recognition  as  a  leader. 
Happily  for  our  institutions,  politics  in  these  rural  communities 
are  not  the  spasmodic  and  often  wild  passions  or  crazes  of  the 
hour,  but  they  are  the  thought  and  the  pursuit  of  everyone  all 
the  year  round.  The  newspapers  are  not  read  for  the  stock  mar- 
ket or  telegraphic  news  or  cablegrams,  but  for  editorials,  trans- 
actions of  conventions,  and  speeches  of  public  men.  Magazines 
are  on  the  table  of  the  sitting  room  not  for  ornament,  but  to  be 
read.  The  lecture  hall  takes  the  place  of  the  theater,  and  there 
the  greatest  questions  of  religion,  politics,  and  sociology  are  dis- 
cussed. The  interval  between  the  morning  and  afternoon  service 
on  Sunday  is  utilized  as  a  sort  of  Chautauqua  for  the  interchange 
of  views,  and  they  promote  general  education.     It  is  to  the  credit 


332  ORATIONS  AND  MEMORIAL  ADDRESSES 

of  Mr.  Flack  that  he  made  his  career  in  such  a  community. 
There  is  no  community  more  typical  of  the  very  best  conditions 
of  rural  life  in  the  country  than  the  district  which  Mr.  Flack 
represented  in  Congress.  Its  common  and  high  schools,  its  acad- 
emies and  its  college,  are  of  the  foremost  educational  rank.  Its 
people  have  always  been  noted  for  their  public  spirit,  interest  in 
public  affairs,  and  pronounced  convictions.  In  the  best  sense  they 
are  all  politicians,  and  the  schoolhouse  is  as  much  a  political  pri- 
mary as  it  is  a  primary  school.  Men  of  State  and  national  fame 
have  been  its  representatives.  No  ordinary  man  could  command 
the  suffrages  of  these  counties.  The  difficulties  in  the  way  of 
success  are  greater  because  they  are  overwhelmingly  of  the  same 
party,  and  a  nomination  is  an  election,  and  the  competition  is 
infinitely  keener  than  where  a  nomination  means  a  doubtful  fight. 
Mr.  Flack  possessed  not  only  the  confidence  of  the  people, 
which  led  to  his  being  so  often  honored,  and  each  time  with 
promotion,  but  he  had  in  a  peculiar  degree  the  love  as  well  as 
the  respect  of  all.  He  possessed  a  personality  so  agreeable  and 
a  disposition  so  charming  that  they  won  to  him  everyone  with 
whom  he  came  in  contact.  His  illness,  unfortunately,  prevented 
continued  activities  in  the  House  of  Representatives,  but  while 
here  he  was  a  conscientious  worker  and  had  the  confidence  and 
respect  of  his  associates.  He  leaves  an  honorable  record  for  his 
family  and  for  the  representation  of  New  York  in  the  Congress 
of  the  United  States. 


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UNIVERSITY  OF  CAL.FORNU 


LIBRARY 


